In this remake of the Spencer Tracy classic, George and Nina Banks are the parents of young soon-to-be-wed Annie. George is a nervous father unready to face the fact that his little girl is now a woman. The preparations for the extravagant wedding provide additional comic moments.
cast
Kimberly Williams as Annie Banks Martin Short as Franck Eggelhoffer Steve Martin as George Stanley Banks Diane Keaton as Nina Banks
quote
[It begins to snow]
Annie: What? What's that face?
George: It's nothing.
Annie: Oh, this is going cost you more money.
George: No. It's just... I know I'll remember this moment, for the rest of my life.
Steve Martin, who showed us the hopes and fears of being a father of younger children in PARENTHOOD is continuing on that theme with an older daughter in his update of 1950's FATHER OF THE BRIDE. He has inherited Spencer Tracy's philosophizing but little of Tracy's dignity. This is a film that pulls in at least three different directions at once as if it just was not sure what it wanted to be when it grew up. It tries first and foremost to be a touching sentimental story of a father coming to terms with the loss to another man of a daughter whom he loves very much. At the same time it wants to be a sort of MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE for weddings--a film about a simple man discovering how complex and expensive it is today to put together a wedding. Then Steve Martin's roots are in physical and slapstick comedy, so this comedy pulls in that direction also. The film simply does not work as all three and the physical comedy is certainly what should have been cut.