I was quite pleased by the latest gentle reboot of Father of the Bride (premiering on HBO Max). This version is a more subdued comedy than the broader Steve Martin film (and I haven’t seen the original Spencer Tracy film to make that comparison).

This film takes a different spin by making the father of the bride a proud Cuban American. He’s played by Andy Garcia with Gloria Estefan as his wife. They are the proud parents of a successful lawyer daughter who wants to marry a man of Mexican decent. But he (Garcia) finds the fiancé a bit of a beta male… not a strong, macho man’s man like him. Of course, lessons are learned.

I was entertained and warmed by this feel good film. It has its edges with Garcia wanting a traditional Catholic wedding and his daughter more interested in an intimate ceremony. And the father of the groom is a wealthy Mexican man who wants the wedding to follow his traditions instead. And we get some nice conflict over these ideas with the mother of the bride pointing out that “we’re all Sharks here”. It was nice to see a depiction of Latin American families that wasn’t homogenous.

I didn’t really have any negative feelings about the film other than maybe it could have been funnier. But that wasn’t the tone they were taking. The broadest the comedy gets is the wedding planner… and if we remember Martin Short, this is taken down about ten notches in the over-the-top department. Yet they still make her (the planner) the source of the broadest comedy (and with all new stereotypes).

I think this is a nice, pleasant film that may never achieve lofty heights but I think does exactly what it sets out to do. An update of a classic idea with a new spin using a wealth of older and newer acting talent. It’s worth a watch.

Score: 84