The romantic comedy is, by its very nature, generic. As in, it depends on its genre tropes to amuse and entertain. Like an easy recipe, it can make for a delicious meal when it’s using nothing but the basics. But to pull off a rom-com is no easy feat. In fact, because its structure appears to be so nakedly preordained, it requires a skillful set of hands. Otherwise it will leave you with a sour taste in your mouth. Mark Waters’ Mother Of The Bride, a Thailand-set romp featuring Brooke Shields as the mother in question, is not so much a misfire as a blatant example of how a formula deployed with little to no charm ends up feeling bland—lifeless, even.
Shields plays Lana, an accomplished scientist whose daughter Emma (Miranda Cosgrove) surprises her one day with wild and unwelcome news: Her influencer career is taking off, she’s dating a boy she met in London, and now she’s going to marry said boy. That first detail—about Emma’s budding social media presence and the way in which her life may yet be dictated by possible sponsorships—is key, since it sets in motion one of the most absurd rom-com premises in recent memory. Emma’s wedding to dashing RJ (Sean Teale) will take place in Thailand and will, improbably, be planned and organized with Emma’s sponsors in mind. No decision has been left for Emma and Lana to make. Not the venue. Not the dress. Not even the mother of the bride’s toast, which, as Lana soon learns, has already been written for her, lest those tuning into the livestream of the rehearsal dinner be made to witness anything remotely authentic.
The rift this creates between mother and daughter would, perhaps, make an intriguing setup for a comedy—that is, if Shields and Cosgrove could muster the kind of chemistry required to make light of such contention. But in addition to this superfluous and clunkily-written conceit for a shotgun-esque wedding, Mother of the Bride lathers on a truly half-baked plot: Lana also finds out that RJ is the son of Will (Benjamin Bratt), the man who broke her heart decades ago, ghosting her soon after they graduated from college. From their very first meeting near a body of water—which the two eventually end up falling into, in one of the many attempts the film makes at old school slapstick comedy—it’s clear that Robin Bernheim’s screenplay is more interested in hitting familiar beats than fleshing out its two-dimensional characters.
Bernheim’s dialogue is also so stilted (“Hi-lo! I mean Hello! Which is actually from the German, ‘hallo,’” Lana stutters, blindsided by Will’s entrance) not even game performers can sell it. No matter how contrived this premise may feel, Mother Of The Bride skids off into its many equally predictable subplots with abandon, despite none being staged with the kind of charm required for us to forgive their inevitability.
Will Lana and Will’s past derail Emma and RJ’s wedding? Will Emma and Lana find a way to make it through these corporate-sponsored nuptials in one piece? Will Mother of the Bride find a way of making Chad Michael Murray’s character anything other than eye candy, an unlikely suitor Lana is sure to ignore? Will the likes of Rachael Harris, Wilson Cruz, and Michael McDonald get to flex their comedic muscles beyond their painfully stale yet requisite BFF (and married GBFs) roles?
Part of the problem with Mother Of The Bride is that there’s very little chemistry between anyone involved. Not between Bratt and Shields, and not between Shields and Cosgrove. Indeed, the Suddenly Susan actress struggles to keep a handle on Lana, her sitcom comedic rhythms clashing awkwardly with both Bratt’s cool leading-man charm and Cosgrove’s similarly affected broad multi-cam stylings. Is Lana a devoted mother who somehow had no idea her daughter was dating a cute boy in London? A supportive parent who doesn’t mind being sidelined in her own daughter’s wedding? A workaholic scientist who now magically finds that it’s time to give love a second chance? As much as Bernheim’s script tries to give this protagonist a semblance of motivation, Lana never quite feels like a real person, only like a cog in the machine that is the romantic comedy industrial complex. (Likewise, the less we say about Mother of the Bride’s grasp on influencer culture and social media as an industry, the better.)
Much of this might be forgiven if Mother Of The Bride gave us even intermittent moments of laugh-out-loud comedy. But, as if fueled by an algorithm that’s inserting scenes that borrow from the much funnier flicks it will now sit alongside in Netflix’s many-themed rows of content, Waters’ film fails to muster any memorable set-pieces. Sure, if you liked Bridesmaids’ tennis match you may chuckle at the pickleball one you’re offered here. If you enjoyed the crackling chemistry between Julia Roberts and George Clooney in Ticket To Paradise you may begrudgingly smile at Bratt and Shields’ banter at an equally lavish seaside resort. And, of course, if you count any version of Father of the Bride as your favorite, you may be inclined to give this similarly-titled-yet-suspiciously-unrelated film a try. None of those comparisons are favorable.
It’s a pity, since all the pieces are here for a fun enough romp to pass the time. Yet at every turn, Mother Of The Bride—which looks garishly like DP Ed Wu shot it against a green screen even when it is obvious we’re watching actors reciting dialogue on a real-life beach—falls flat, going for low-hanging punchlines and painfully unfunny slapstick moments in the service of a trite message about giving love a second chance. A dictum made all the easier to follow yet harder still to buy into, of course, when pushed amid a corporate-sponsored, influencer-curated destination wedding.