My Mother’s Wedding (2023) ‘WIFF’ Movie Review: A Great Actress Makes an Enjoyable Directorial Debut

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Kristin Scott Thomas has spent over thirty years building a reputation as one of our finest yet least appreciated actresses. Much like Jean Simmons and Deborah Kerr before her, she’s been more respected than heralded due to her tasteful approach to her roles, almost always undertaken with grace and intelligence. With the notable exception of “Only God Forgives” (2010), she’s rarely overacted, mindful that there are no small parts, and generously gives her fellow performers the space. Her entire career seems to have been built around a conviction that virtue is its own reward and that good things come to those who wait.

Those same traits are now in evidence in her feature debut as a writer-director as well. “My Mother’s Wedding” (Original title: North Star) may be a semi-autobiographical film, and Scott Thomas herself has the title role as a character based on her own mother, but this is a true ensemble effort in every way. If there is a main character, it’s the eldest daughter, a naval officer played by Scarlett Johansson. Much of the film plays out from this character’s perspective, with her childhood flashbacks frequently presented in charcoal animation. And while Johansson and Scott Thomas are both wonderful in their parts, they’re also careful not to overstep their boundaries, and offer plenty of room to the other cast members as well.

Scott Thomas is Diana, whose first husband died in the Falklands War and her second in a flight over Bosnia in the early Nineties. She’s now engaged to marry Geoff (a splendid James Fleet), by all evidence, a wonderful man who loves her dearly. Her daughters can also see that, but they all have doubts due to their complicated memories of their own fathers: Katherine (Johansson), is the only one who remembers both of them, while youngest daughter, nurse Georgina (Emily Beecham), being a product of their mother’s second union, grew up thinking of him as the only father the family ever had. The middle sister, actress Victoria, has the most complicated feelings of them all: her mother was pregnant with her when her first husband died, and the second was the only father she ever really knew, yet she has never really felt a sense of belonging to either of them.

The career choices of each sister have, in their own ways, served as therapy, but they have also become the source of conflict and argument. Georgina has chosen a life in palliative care, assisting those at the end of their lives. She has always felt overshadowed by her sisters throughout her own life, especially considering their career successes. Victoria has had the highest profile as a commercially, if not artistically successful actress, but her recent talk-show comments about her “difficult” childhood have angered her siblings.

My Mother’s Wedding (2023) — A still from “My Mother’s Wedding” (2023)

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Finally, Katherine has always felt the burden of following in both her fathers’s footsteps and her mother’s wedding takes place on the eve of the ceremony, inducting her as the first female battleship captain in the Royal Navy (although in real life, Captain Maryla Ingham just beat her to that milestone). Her aggressive drive in this respect has always rubbed her sisters the wrong way and has also helped fracture her relationship with her life partner (Freida Pinto) and young son (Fflyn Edwards) as well.

The screenplay Scott Thomas co-wrote with her real-life husband, journalist John Micklethwait, derives in part from her own childhood: both her biological father and first stepfather, Royal Navy pilots coincidentally named Simon (both fathers in the movie are named John, which leads to confusion when old memories are discussed), had died in separate aerial accidents (not in combat, as in the movie), when she was aged five and twelve, respectively.

There are other notable changes to remind us that this is not intended as a strict autobiography. There are four Scott Thomas siblings and not just three, including an undepicted brother. All were products of their mother’s first marriage (and she was indeed pregnant with the youngest when she lost her first husband). None of the real-life siblings became a nurse or naval captain. However, two of them became actresses (the other being Serena Scott Thomas, although both she and her sister have made much wiser career choices than the Victoria character).

That all scarcely matters, because the movie is about universal feelings and situations that anyone in a large family has experienced and can relate to. You cannot help but compare yourself to your siblings and judge your own success in life by theirs. And no matter how much you know that your parents love you, you always wonder, at the back of your head, if what you’ve done in life has truly made them proud.

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It sometimes takes a massive shock to pull yourself out of that mentality, to step back and realize how silly it is to assume such things. The daughters of “My Mother’s Wedding” experienced such a shock years ago, but they were too young then to realize it. Only as adults reflecting on it years later can they truly learn the proper life lessons. This wedding is necessary so they can all finally reunite in emotional honesty and find closure amongst themselves, as well as for their mother to find the lasting happiness that has eluded her.

“My Mother’s Wedding” is far from a perfect film. The subplot about Georgina’s husband’s infidelity feels painfully shoehorned to catalyze the arguments that dominate the midpiece of the film, and its resolution to it (if one can call it that) is abrupt and unsatisfactory. As convincing as the actresses are, we never once feel any love between Johansson’s character and her partner, played by Frieda Pinto, mainly because the latter has so little screentime.

And when Diana angrily lectures to her daughters at the graveside of her first two husbands, it’s all too obviously not the character or even Scott Thomas the actress speaking, but Scott Thomas the writer-director trying to deliver a message to the audience (it’s not unlike that awful scene at the beginning of “Stan and Ollie” where it’s clearly Steve Coogan and not Stan Laurel tearing out Hal Roach). It’s yet another instance of a film indulging in completely unnecessary speechifying when the main messages and themes have already been powerfully portrayed through character actions and relationships.

Still, the movie reminds us to love each other despite our imperfections, and perhaps that’s the best way to approach the film itself. Whatever its flaws, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable hour-and-a-half movie, as cozy as a group hug at a real wedding. It’s also a pleasant reminder that even after nearly 40 years of consistent excellence, a great talent can still surprise us with new ways to excel.