| Benignly boring >>
The Son of the Bride is well-intentioned by MARK SLUTSKY
Ricardo Darin plays Rafael Belvedere, a Buenos Aires restaurateur set upon by the combined stresses of his trade and a faltering economy (interestingly, Bride seems to be have been made while Argentina’s economy was stumbling, but before it completely collapsed). As these movies tend to go, Darin’s got a handful of issue- and problem-ridden friends and relatives with whom to interact and produce the necessary drama to move along the wafer-thin plotline. There’s his dad (Hector Alterio), who started the restaurant years ago and now spends his days visiting Darin’s Alzheimer’s-suffering mom (Norma Aleandro), whom he wants to re-marry in a church ceremony. There’s his cute young girlfriend (Natalia Verbeke), who’s tired of Darin’s anxiety and inattention. Of course, with all of Darin’s stressing and smoking, you know he’s going to have a heart attack. In waltzes an old buddy (Eduardo Blanco, who looks kind of like a smiley Vincent Schiavelli), who’s really suffered, and as such developed a wonderful love for life. And so The Son of the Bride slowly chugs along, its various little dramas unfolding and resolving themselves in various pleasant-enough denouements. There’s stuff to like in this movie, to be sure: a funny set-piece on a movie shoot, some nicely casual interplay between the characters. And for a family movie set in a restaurant, Campanella mercifully spares us any panting bliss-outs on the sensual nature of food. But ultimately, you could miss this movie without missing anything you’d be really grateful for. : The Son of the Bride opens Friday, Aug. 2 at Cinéma du Parc >> Movie Listings |
It’s
not like there’s anything to offend the eyes or ears in The Son
of the Bride, a new movie from Argentinean director Juan José
Campanella, unless well-intentioned dullness counts as an offence. No,
Bride is a perfectly pleasant family-based comedy/drama, but apart from
a couple of inspired scenes, it’s got no spark. If it were a little
shorter (it runs over two hours) maybe it could’ve sustained its
faint likeability into something snappier and more entertaining. As
it stands it’s just benignly boring.