ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

jeanettehu4 it was one of the sweetest movies I watched. I watched two movies today, one was When Harry Met Sally and the other one was this movie. I like this way better than that, may be it is because the stories about family always touch me more than the stories about love. I knew both of these to movies from my text book"the American way", the chapter talks about the American family. I think the movie"When Harry Met Sally" is about the relationship between men and women, and this movie is about the relationship between father and daughter. Anyway, I do like this movie a lot, it was funny and warm. :) And the other thing I was glad about was, this movie doesn't have subtitle, but surprisingly I understood almost all.

Advait Kamat I have often thought that Steve Martin always deserved more respect and honor than he has already received, given the fact that he has pulled off both screen writing and acting with unrivaled avidity. And the fact still remains that, if Steve Martin is acting in a film, the film belongs to him all the way. Even if the film is the ruefully boring and a near-disastrous rendition of the 1963 classic "The Pink Panther", in which he played the iconic role of Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau. In "Father Of The Bride", he once again takes on a role made iconic by Spencer Tracy, though this time he gives it a skin of its own, thus succeeding in transforming a mawkishly-constructed drama into a zingy comedy.George Banks' (Steve Martin) life changes when his daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams) tells him that she has decided to get married to Bryan MacKenzie (George Newbern), a guy she had met in Rome a few months before. Unable to cope up with the idea of living his life without Annie, George finds himself getting increasingly flustered with the preparations for the wedding. His wife Nina (Diane Keaton) finds Annie a wedding coordinator Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) when she finds out that George isn't quite willing to let Annie get married. The plot focuses on the subsequent wedding and how George embraces the little occasions it brings.Something that struck me before anything else did was how quickly the plot kicked in, not wanting to fool around with the frivolous bits. This, of course, led to the protracted development of a few characters though Martin got enough screen time to imbue his character of George Banks with disarming sincerity and embellish him into a likable and congenial father. Though the story roisters itself through a rather predictable narrative, the funny parts come in little details. And somehow you feel as if they weren't put there to make you laugh because they seem so familiar. That's one way to know how delightful a comedy really is, when it makes you laugh, not because it is funny but because how honest it is. "Father Of The Bride" is a commendable addition to that category because it doesn't have to try hard to make you smile. It's a useful little trick and director Charles Shyer sneakily uses it to magnificent effect.One of the many niggles I have with this film is how many insignificant details it cramps in its plot, like the utterly inconsequential scene where George decides to investigate the MacKenzies and finally ends up in their pool after an overlong, overused cliché of wrecking a perfectly set-up meeting. If it was an an attempt to show George's desperation, it came off as a tawdry plea to evoke laughter. The underwritten character of Nina is a minor flaw which could've easily been rectified, had Shyer let the plot unravel at its own pace. At the end of the first hour, George's anguish at letting Annie go begins to take its toll on your patience, and more than once I had wanted to yell "Get on with it!", though I couldn't shake off the feeling that the intention was deliberate. Either way, I found it to be vaguely irksome.Of the performances, Steve Martin turns in a supremely well-balanced performance with his portrayal of George Banks, playing the distressed and hesitantly supportive father with a calm demeanor. Diane Keaton is wonderful in her role as his wife Nina, though a little more writing could have greatly helped her character to be as delightful. Kimberly Williams' lack of confidence in her role as Annie is evident though she maintains a dignified presence throughout."Father Of The Bride" is one of those rare comedies that don't age with time. If you can get past it's predictable plot, it's one film that has enough substance to make your day.

wes-connors Flustered father Steve Martin (as George Banks) is startled when his cute 22-yer-old daughter announces she's engaged to be married, upon returning to San Marino, California from studying abroad in Rome, Italy. Accepting wife Diane Keaton (as Nina) and excited bride Kimberly Williams (as Annie) immediately begin planning an extravagant affair. They hire flamboyant foreign-accented wedding planner Martin Short (as Franck Eggelhoffer). Handsome wavy-haired George Newbern (as Bryan MacKenzie), coincidently nestled in nearby Bel-Air, is the intended husband. Little brother Kieran Culkin adeptly parks cars. A little quaint for the 1990s.****** Father of the Bride (12/20/91) Charles Shyer ~ Steve Martin, Diane Keaton, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Martin Short

dunmore_ego A film with charm, grace and laughs, FATHER OF THE BRIDE is a rarity in the pantheon of White American Romantic Comedies (WARC). Firstly, because it's watchable. Secondly, because it is post-comedy Steve Martin and it's still watchable.Remade from the 1950 Spencer Tracy farce of the same name, director Charles Shyer retains that film's original twist on the abominations which would one day be known as Chick Flicks: the film's star is not the focus of the "romance" but the outside observer, as love labors on his daughter, as he narrates through the eyes of a doting, frazzled father.Steve Martin is George Banks, the titular Father of the Bride, who plays his part with the aforementioned charm, grace and laughs. Unlike most WARCs, the father of this household is not the least intelligent member of the family; he is not portly, he doesn't wear flannel shirts over white wife-beaters and he doesn't moon over sports programming like it's gospel. George owns his own business, is a loving father and husband, pragmatic, punctual, reliable and knows how to treat women with respect. He seems caught in that timewarp of a generation that was once hip and is losing its ground on the moving goalpost of hipness.The comedy in this lighthearted farce is drawn first from George's unwillingness to accept his daughter as an adult on the pathway to marriage, and then from the wedding planning. This was at a time when Steve Martin was still Steve Martin, on the heels of PLANES TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES (1987) and DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS (1988).And Diane Keaton was still a glorious MILF, glowing as George's understanding wife, the mother of his children. (Oooh, I'd like to mother her.) At times, movie stoops to playing Mother Smarter Than Father, and George is incessantly put upon by many of the characters, but the movie redeems itself with George's surfeit of poignancy, that he drivels all over us at regular introspective intervals. Rather than make us vomit, it hits home all the psychological and pragmatic reasons a father holds so tight to his daughter.When daughter Annie (beautiful newcomer Kimberly Williams) announces at the dinner table her intentions to marry a man she met in Rome, all that George sees is his five-year-old girl blathering it. Throughout the film, George makes comments about being "replaced," about not being needed or heeded any more, but it all boils down to feeling like he has lost his daughter's love. And that's another welcome departure from WARCs: we don't feel - and we don't *need* to feel - any chemistry between the two people who are actually getting married! All our hopes rest on the chemistry between the father and daughter.In the final moments, as Annie and her new husband (George Newbern) are leaving the reception, George has reconciled his protective paternal love with his desire for her to feel that same love towards someone else. And we feel his sincerity. If Steve Martin can sell this story to us childless nullifidians, imagine how he's making those fathers in the audience weep like repentant sinners.The usually less-than-funny Martin Short raises his game here to above adequate as the ambiguously-Euro wedding planner Franck (pronounced "Fronk") who, along with assistant B.D. Wong, debilitates the English language in his quest to provide the best wedding ever for Annie. ("Ahhh, Mahsta Bonks and Missus Bonks and the lofflay bride!") The groom's parents were merely devices for some farcical Steve Martin moments with Dobermans and falling into pools.The annoying side of this film is how the father of the bride - George - is treated like a bottomless piggy bank. He is literally extorted by every contractor involved - on the threat that if he doesn't buy what the wife and daughter want for the wedding they will pout a lot. And it must be nice to be so affluent that when obscene monies are changing hands - amounts that would bankrupt most of us for life - your worst reaction is to pull a funny face. And all for the sake of one of the biggest social scams since civilization went civil - a wedding, which is nothing but a glorified party, just with a white dress and a state contract.Maybe it's a sign of the changing times, but remember when George's social standing would have been called middle class? There is no such class in America in 2011; George would now be termed "upper middle class" or just upper class.How nice marriage can be when you can afford swans and a $10,000 cake; when everyone is painfully white and has a job that actually pays the bills; in a giant house in suburbia with a picket fence, a picturesque, tree-lined street and a dog trained not to thigh-hump anyone.So now the fathers are all weeping for a totally different reason...