{"id":63582,"date":"2025-08-06T22:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63582\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T22:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T22:06:10","slug":"kristin-scott-thomas-debuts-as-director-with-my-mothers-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63582\/","title":{"rendered":"Kristin Scott Thomas debuts as director with “My Mother’s Wedding”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kristin Scott Thomas\u2019s directorial debut, \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Wedding,\u201d invites comparison to Azazel Jacobs\u2019s superb 2024 family drama, \u201cHis Three Daughters.\u201d<\/a> Both films revolve around three sisters who gather together for a major family event. The reunion opens old wounds and reveals a few secrets while allowing three actors to bring their A-game.<\/p>\n

In this movie, the occasion is in the title. In the English county of Hampshire, Diana (Thomas) is about to marry the salaciously named Geoff Loveglove (James Fleet). It\u2019s Diana\u2019s third marriage, and her three daughters are coming home to attend the nuptials. Though married twice, Diana raised her kids primarily as a single mother. Her story is constantly milked on late night talk shows by her most famous daughter, Victoria (Sienna Miller).<\/p>\n

When the film opens, Diana\u2019s eldest, Captain Katherine Frost (Scarlett Johansson), is about to become the first woman to command a vessel in the Royal Navy. She will oversee the HMS Prince of Wales. Katherine and Victoria\u2019s father, John Frost, also served in the Navy. He was killed in action during the Falklands War.<\/p>\n

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Katherine was 12 when her mother\u2019s second husband, John Monson, went missing in action in Bosnia and was presumed dead. Monson was the father of Diana\u2019s third daughter, Georgina (Emily Beecham).<\/p>\n

We see these two paternal figures in brief animated vignettes only, and in a cherished photo of the two men together in the Navy. But even in death, they maintain a powerful hold on their daughters. Women with \u201cDaddy Issues\u201d are a common movie trope, but the script by Scott Thomas and John Micklethwait (her husband<\/a>, who is editor in chief of Bloomberg News) avoids the usual pitfall of reducing their characters to that one clich\u00e9. <\/p>\n

Still, each daughter can trace some of her problems to losing a father. Katherine joined the Navy to honor hers, a man she clings to through distant childhood memories. Her last name is her only tie to this man, as her mother took Monson\u2019s last name when they married.<\/p>\n

\"FreidaFreida Pinto and Scarlett Johansson in \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Wedding.\u201dVertical<\/p>\n

Katherine also holds unexpressed guilt about a disagreement she had with her stepfather just before he disappeared. As a result, she throws herself into her military service while leaving her son, Marcus (Fflyn Edwards), in the care of her longtime companion, Jack (Freida Pinto). Jack wants to get married (her accepting mother makes a joke about how lesbians are just as commitment shy as a straight couple), but she\u2019s in love with a partner whose emotional distance may doom their relationship.<\/p>\n

The thrice-married Victoria has built her acting career on an action movie franchise, \u201cThe Dame of Darkness.\u201d A running joke is that no one can remember how many of these movies she\u2019s made. Waiting for her at her mother\u2019s home is her childhood crush, who still seems sweet on her, and her current lover, a rich man she calls The Grand Fromage (Thibault de Montalembert). The Big Cheese is old enough to be her father \u2014 and he\u2019s married.<\/p>\n

At first glance, Georgina appears to be the most traditional sibling. She got married early, and also has three daughters. However, her husband, Jeremy (Joshua McGuire) is a neglectful goofball who may be having an affair. He is definitely having a midlife crisis, as evidenced by his red convertible. Victoria hires a private eye on Georgina\u2019s behalf, an unwise decision since the kinky results of the investigation are delivered at the wedding reception. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy Mother\u2019s Wedding\u201d neatly juxtaposes its subplots with the joyous event that serves as its centerpiece. The wedding allows Scott Thomas to bring in several minor characters for an effective moment or two. Victoria\u2019s teenage son, Skylar (Ziggy Gardner) has a memorable scene that highlights Geoff\u2019s love for his new family. Samson Kayo (\u201cF1: The Movie\u201d) is fun as the private investigator who underscores his recordings of infidelity with songs like Salt \u2018n Pepa\u2019s \u201cLet\u2019s Talk About Sex.\u201d <\/p>\n

There\u2019s also an autobiographical thread running through this film that I\u2019ll leave you to discover. <\/p>\n

\"ScarlettScarlett Johansson, Emily Beecham, and Sienna Miller in \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Wedding.\u201d Vertical<\/p>\n

The acting is uniformly good. Johansson captures how the loss of a beloved person can contribute to the fear of opening up and accepting love from others. Beecham brings a dark, angry humor to Georgina\u2019s situation. Miller has fun with Victoria\u2019s self-awareness regarding men. Fleet brings a quiet gravitas to his role as the latest groom. And Scott Thomas gets the film\u2019s best scene, a dressing down of her daughters that\u2019s full of common sense and confessions.<\/p>\n

I wish I could say that the accents were also uniformly good. Though she tries her best to sound English, ScarJo just can\u2019t compete with a slew of actors wielding the genuine article. Thankfully, her performance is so good that the accent isn\u2019t too distracting.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Scott Thomas gives Johansson the film\u2019s most jaw-dropping visual. As the camera moves away from Katherine, we see the entire HMS Prince of Wales. The vessel\u2019s enormity reduces Katherine to a mere dot on the screen. The scene is an impressive outlier in an otherwise intimately shot debut feature. <\/p>\n

\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/p>\n

MY MOTHER\u2019S WEDDING<\/p>\n

Directed by Kristin Scott Thomas. Written by Scott Thomas and John Micklethwait. Starring Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, Scott Thomas, James Fleet, Freida Pinto, Fflyn Edwards, Thibault de Montalembert, Joshua McGuire, Ziggy Gardner, Samson Kayo. 95 minutes. At AMC Boston Common, suburbs. R (brief nudity, a sex scene played for laughs)<\/p>\n

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kristin Scott Thomas\u2019s directorial debut, \u201cMy Mother\u2019s Wedding,\u201d invites comparison to Azazel Jacobs\u2019s superb 2024 family drama, \u201cHis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":["post-63582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}