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Father of the Bride
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The experience of watching, back in 1977, the original
film of Father of the Bride (Vincente
Minnelli, 1950, adapted from a 1949 novel by Edward Streeter), projected (in 16mm)
and discussed in a Melbourne Teachers College classroom, was a formative moment
of pedagogy in my life. My fine teacher, Tom Ryan (author of The Films of Douglas Sirk: Exquisite Ironies
and Magnificent Obsessions [2019]), even wrote a large, double-page-spread
analysis of this movie and its sequel, Father’s
Little Dividend (1951, Minnelli again), for that institution’s student
newspaper!
On that day, I went in a flash from finding Father of the Bride an entertaining but
“light” (i.e., unserious) Hollywood comedy to appreciating the sometimes
subversive finesse of Minnelli’s craft and art. That was an “apprenticeship in
magic” (Raymond Bellour’s phrase to describe the close-analysis teaching of
cinema) to truly savour.
The ‘90s Charles Shyer/Nancy Meyers redo of Father of the Bride as a Steve Martin
vehicle is a terrible film. (And I do like some Martin vehicles.) There are so
many ways and levels in which it fails its predecessor. Let me try to count
them.
a. A father’s neurosis about his own fading virility,
as well as the loss of his special, mundanely “patriarchal” place in the scheme
of things – sublimely conveyed by Spencer Tracy in 1950 – is entirely erased in
1991. The scene of trying-on, in front of a mirror, a suit from younger days
simply leads to a nutty, whimsical dance from Steve M.
b. Related to that virility: also absent is the entire
undertone, crucial to the original, of the daughter (Elizabeth Taylor in ’50,
Kimberly Williams here) as an object of erotic desire – for instance,
Minnelli’s scene of Liz made beautiful in a spray of mirrors, gazed upon by
Dad.
In this respect, it must be said, Stan Dragoti’s
surprisingly intense She’s Out of Control (1989) goes much further than the Father
of the Bride remake … and also retains Minnelli’s montage sequence of
potential husband-material! (Dragoti [1932-2018], a curious and overlooked
case, also made the ‘realist Western’ Dirty
Little Billy [1972] and the influential hit Mr Mom [1983].)
c. Also gone: much of the material(ist) shame and
agony of the parents (Joan Bennett played the wife/mother with enormous dignity
in ’50, Diane Keaton hardly has a role in this same position in ’91) related to
their house, the arrangement of the wedding, social status, and monetary
nightmares.
d. Speaking of nightmares: Minnelli’s amazing
excursion into dream-scene surrealism, playing on every kind of “performance
anxiety”, is missing. So, in ’91 there’s no (or every little) anxiety, and
absolutely none of the miraculous grace and poise that Minnelli could invest
(masterfully balancing all the elements and tones) in scenes such as the
wedding ceremony itself, with its “I do” utterance.
e. One of the most striking pop-Freudian (yet so
satisfying and true-to-life!) moments in the original is when, across their
single beds, Father “unburdens” himself of all anxieties to his wife – who
then, as a camera movement cleverly tells us, takes all that worry on herself,
and cannot get to sleep as her hubby now drifts off in placid peacefulness. It
is not in the remake.
f. Martin Short is shockingly over-the-top as gay
Franck Eggelhoffer, “wedding co-ordinator”. As character actors go, give me Leo
G. Carroll any day!
g. The remake is padded out with awful, supposedly
feel-good scenes of characters playing basketball in the yard, with slo-mo
shots of hands slapping in elation …
h. Shyer/Meyers (who did considerably better work
together in Baby Boom [1987], also
with Keaton) have a real problem on their hands when it comes to what to do
with the role of a young, modern woman in this scenario. There’s an uneasy
gesture to debunk the inevitable “1950s sexual politics reference”, but the
daughter is ultimately still just a silly, hysterical wife-to-be and a luminous
bride … Some token basketball bits with Dad will never be enough to redress
this imbalance.
i. Some of the worst moments in contemporary romantic
comedies arrive when due homage is made – half-sweetly, half-ironically – to
previous classics in the genre (usually as broadcast on TV). Here, we find nods
to The Philadelphia Story (1940), and
to Bringing Up Baby (1938) because
the happy couple met at a midnight screening of it in Italy … Yet we are never
convinced that either the letter or the spirit of these classics is being
sufficiently grasped, or well met.
MORE Shyer: Alfie MORE Meyers: Something's Gotta Give, The Parent Trap © Adrian Martin December 1991 |
