Daughter of the Bride (2023)

Daughter of the Bride (2023)

 2/10

Starring

Marcia Gay Harden

Halston Sage

Andrew Richardson

Cara Santana

 

Directed by Annette Haywood-Carter

 

The concept of this film lost me from the start, it took me a while to finally grasp the idea of the Daughter of the Bride.

I saw this film because any time I see anything of the bride, I want to watch it because Father of the Bride (1991) was a huge part of my happiness growing up. One thing this film lacked was proper directing. The scenes seemed forced, and you can tell that right from the start. Also, there was a lack of a proper fit between these young actors, and everything going around them or when they were conversing. The characters’ acting are of less quality than what you would expect in even a B-movie like this. The older actors were able to do their work as you would expect seasoned actors to. But I really could not get over how horrible Halston Sage was as an actor. She was so, so bad. I do not know this lady, but she was acting like those characters in those Nickelodeon children shows, that you know never to take seriously. All she had to do was to stop trying to force acting and just act. It is bad when you are watching a film, and you feel you can do better than the person paid to act.

The plot is about this mother and daughter union that has them being there for themselves from when she was a child until adulthood. Now, their bond was not annoying or irritating, everything else was. The daughter Kate (Sage), saw an older man help a younger man her age, start a car, and liked the way he carried himself. She walked up to him, gave him her mother’s phone number, and thought nothing of it. Six weeks later they are engaged, and Kate is losing it, because she did not expect this thing to go so fast or even to ever reach this point. So, the Father of the Bride (1991) situation happens, where she is the one freaking out about her mother getting married to a man, she barely just knows.

Because this film lacked any form of substance or enough material to run on, they had to introduce another love story for Kate, which runs alongside the marriage plans of her mother. Her love story is even more pathetic than her acting.

The reason why I am critical is that one of my favourite movies of the 90s was Father of the Bride. I was young, did not know it was a remake of one done in the 50 by Spencer Tracy, all I knew was how much I loved it. I grew up on the Banks and the moment I saw the second part, it was like a dream blend. Father of the Bride (1991) and II (1995) were my happy places, as a child. So, when they made that disaster of a remake in 2022 with a bunch of annoying characters, I was offended.