Revamped with a Latino cast, the 2022 iteration of “Father of the Bride” harnesses the generational and cultural divide between immigrants and their children to put a spin on this romantic comedy premise 30 years after the release of the previous version starring Steve Martin and Diane Keaton (and 72 years after Spencer Tracy walked Elizabeth Taylor down the aisle).
With new gravitas, this venerable property serves as an excellent vehicle for veteran Cuban-born actor Andy Garcia to savor a lead role that feels custom-made for him.
This is Mexican filmmaker Gaz Alazraki’s first feature since his 2013 mega hit “We Are the Nobles” (“Nosotros los Nobles”) broke box office records in his home country. Alazraki went on to create Netflix’s first Spanish-language episodic series, the soccer comedy “Club de Cuervos.” That screenwriter Matt Lopez is an American-born Latino and the director a Mexican national making strides in Hollywood make this reboot surprisingly insightful both in the experiences it portrays and in its portrayal of distinct subsets of a community so often painted with a broad brush.
Traditional in his views on marriage and work ethic, the “self-made” patriarch of the Herrera family, Billy (Garcia) often pontificates about the hardship he faced as a Cuban exile to attain his current status as a prominent architect. He designed the Coral Gables house where he and his wife Ingrid (Gloria Estefan) raised their daughters Sofia (Adria Arjona, daughter of famed Guatemalan musician Ricardo Arjona) and Cora (Isabela Merced, “Dora and the Lost City of Gold”).
Billy cherishes old rituals that highlight his paternal role in the life of his children and as head of the household. But in his narrow-minded perception of how things should operate, both at home and at the office, he’s lost sight of why he worked so diligently in the first place. As Ingrid informs him she wants a divorce, tired of his dismissive and workaholic behavior, Sofia visits them to announce she is marrying a Mexican man and moving with him to his country. The parents agree to keep their separation a secret until after the wedding.
Diego Boneta (Netflix’s “Luis Miguel: The Series”) plays Adan, the future son-in-law who doesn’t fit the standards of rugged and stoic masculinity that Billy upholds. And so begins an arduous battle between Sofia and Billy over the number of guests, the location and who will foot the bill. Over the course of the ordeal, Garcia traverses a range of demeanors that give Billy a full-bodied personality. First uncompromisingly proud, later angry at being vilified, melancholic and sad, and eventually allowing his vulnerability to show, Garcia always plays the right tone for the humor, mostly at his character’s expense, to work.
In this struggle between outdated views and modernity, the film falls into plenty of clichés about millennials, including dietary restrictions, political correctness, and a brief altercation about the contested, gender-neutral term “Latinx.” Parodying Instagram-obsessed influencers, “SNL” star Chloe Fineman carries one of the most hilarious supporting parts as the over-the-top wedding planner, filling Martin Short’s thoroughly unsensible shoes.
Tension mounts when Billy meets Adan’s father Hernan (Pedro Damián), a wealthier and cooler man with a wife several decades his junior and an infant child. With every stand Sofia takes against his wishes, Billy sees his relevance decimated. There are inevitably formulaic elements that push the plot forward in a direction that ensures Billy has a defined and poignant character arc, coming to understand how his stubborn desire for control impacts others before ultimately granting him a pathway to redemption on all fronts.
Yet, though we absolutely know the outcome, this take delivers its message of understanding and personal evolution in a way that will strongly speak to those who are both appreciative of their immigrant parents’ sacrifices and burdened by the expectation to honor that gift professionally without deviating from the status quo. While Sofia has always done right by her father — until now — aspiring fashion designer Cora illustrates the struggle of those first-generation Americans pursuing non-traditional careers that their stability-minded loved ones can’t fully comprehend.
Halfway through, as both families meet, the Mexican parents question why, if everyone speaks fluent Spanish, they communicate in English. Garcia’s Billy goes on to explain the difficulty of preserving one’s language and culture for the next generation the more they assimilate into American society. The unexpectedly revealing speech smartly notes the distinction between the lived experience of people in Latin America and their compatriots who migrate to forge a life in a new country raising bicultural children in a multicultural society.
“Father of the Bride” deserves praise for not reinforcing Hollywood’s homogenous Latino culture, instead highlighting the distinctions between the Cuban and the Mexican sides — even if with very blunt tropes about music and food — without losing sight of the profound similarities. However, other than the presence of Afro-Latino reggaeton star Ozuna, the depiction of Latinos remains racially uniform here, an issue Latino creators must address.
Stylistically, what stands out is how intently Alazraki and cinematographer Igor Jadue-Lillo (“Four Good Days”) make sure that their sun-dappled Miami locations get appreciated on screen, even if at times excessively. Postcard-ready vistas of Calle Ocho and Ocean Drive parade across the screen to Terence Blanchard’s jazzy score. That nurtured sense of place ties to the narrative in the third act, when the city’s propensity for rough weather coming from the Caribbean adds drama.
For their reinvention of “Father of the Bride,” Alazraki and Lopez manage to make it feel so rooted in the Latino background of their characters that comparison to the older films doesn’t seem all that relevant. This one stands on its own.
Perhaps even more significant in today’s divisive climate than ever before is the notion of allowing people from earlier generations the grace to acclimate to societal changes unfolding rather than immediately to ostracize them. Most of us, Latinos or otherwise, know a relative with similarly rigid worldviews, often not out of malice but circumstance. Putting Garcia and Estefan, both trailblazers for Latinos in entertainment in this country, in a project where they are the stars and not the secondary players to the younger cast, goes in line with that.
“Father of the Bride” premieres Thursday on HBO Max.