Mother of the Bride has been a critical disappointment compared to Brooke Shields’ rom-com success from three years ago. The new Netflix original movie, which also stars Miranda Cosgrove, Sean Teale, Chad Michael Murray, Rachael Harris, and Benjamin Bratt, was written by Robin Bernheim, who has previously collaborated with Netflix on the Princess Switch trilogy and A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding. It was directed by Mark Waters, whose most prominent credits include the 2000s teen classics Mean Girls and Freaky Friday.
The Mother of the Bride star has been in the industry for decades, having kicked off her career as a model at just eleven months old and taken her first onscreen role before she turned ten. After starring in controversial titles including Pretty Baby and The Blue Lagoon and then attending Princeton, she returned to acting as an adult and held roles in prominent titles including Suddenly, Susan and 1999’s The Bachelor. However, more recently, the star has taken onscreen roles less frequently, with her new Netflix movie marking her first live-action release since 2022’s Holiday Harmony.
Despite assembling a cadre of veterans of the genre both in front of and behind the camera, negative Mother of the Bride reviews ended up earning the movie a dismal Rotten Tomatoes score of 22%. While this would be a disappointment on any resume, it is even more upsetting in the wake of Shields’ previous collaboration with Netflix, which was the 2021 rom-com A Castle for Christmas. The movie, which co-starred Cary Elwes, was part of Netflix’s interconnected Christmas universe, which includes some of their biggest holiday rom-com franchises.
A Castle for Christmas was considerably more well-received than Mother of the Bride, earning a solidly Fresh score of 75%, though there aren’t enough reviews for it to be considered Certified Fresh. In addition to beating Shields’ new movie’s score by more than 50%, it is the highest-rated installment in the entire Netflix Christmas universe. Below, see how A Castle for Christmas compares to the Rotten Tomatoes scores for every other movie in the same universe:
In addition to likely earning general goodwill for being holiday-themed, A Castle for Christmas excelled even by the standards of a streaming Christmas movie. This was largely due to Elwes and Shields’ chemistry as they brought the movie’s enemies-to-lovers arc to life, an element for which nearly every critic had glowing praise. Mother of the Bride, with its more ensemble-focused narrative, received no such praise. It was also criticized for its generic script and rote comedy, despite its memorable beachside location. Without a holiday hook or a strong focus on Shields’ talents, the movie seems to have suffered considerably.
Click here to watch Mother of the Bride on Netflix