5 Holiday Movies That Get Us in the Spirit
Okay, we're just going to say it.
While every party may very well have a pooper, George Banks (Steve Martin) was kinda justified in his complaints. Not only did his 22-year-old daughter (played by then-newcomer Kimberly Williams-Paisley) return from a three-month study abroad trip engaged to some guy they'd never met, she expected her dad to pony up for a 572-person, $250-a-plate over-the-top affair at their sizable California spread.
Or, as the patriarch put it in Father of the Bride, "When I bought this house 17 years ago it cost less than this blessed event in which Annie Banks became Annie Banks-MacKenzie. I'm told that one day I'll look back on all this with great affection. I hope so."
And yet, despite what eccentric wedding planner Franck (Martin's frequent costar Martin Short) labeled as the titular father's curmudgeonly ways, Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer's remake of the Spencer Tracy- and Elizabeth Taylor-led 1950 classic about a dad's begrudging acceptance that his little girl isn't all that little anymore so thoroughly charmed audiences that it raked in $129 million at the worldwide box office.
And nearly three decades after its Dec. 20, 1991, release, we all happily signed on to YouTube and Facebook to check in on the Banks crew (including matriarch Diane Keaton and little brother Kieran Culkin) during Netflix's September 2020 virtual reunion special, Father of the Bride Part 3 (ish).
"I just love the length of time this movie has been around and affecting people's lives and the impact that it's had on so many families," said Williams-Paisley who chatted with E! News about her experience on the film and the success of her and husband Brad Paisley's Nashville-based nonprofit The Store, which gave away more than 1.5 million meals in its first year.
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Though their planned 2020 grand opening was tempered a bit due to COVID, "We just hit the ground running," she shared. "What was so cool was that it was all lined up so we had the means to help people right away when they needed it so badly."
And, yes, we'd guess shoppers approach her in the aisles to ask about the beloved flick. "For so many years," she shared, "people would come up and tell me about their wedding or tell me about playing basketball with their dads and all these things."
Hard to blame them. Just like Annie Banks falling hard and fast for new fiancé Bryan MacKenzie (George Newbern), we were quickly and all-encompassingly enamored with the coming of age story. So to celebrate 33 years of touching father-daughter moments and brides wearing sneakers underneath their wedding gowns, will you vow to love these facts about Father of the Bride as fiercely as we do?