Father of the bride treated like sh*t

I'm a woman, and I agree with you. She treated her father with disrespect. Yet during his speech at the reception, Harvey praised her sensitivity! I guess the main point was that everyone forgave each other, eventually.

What I got from the movie was that he hadn't been there for his daughter after he split with her mother, and that even before that he'd been focused on his career to the detriment of his family. He said that he'd always felt he'd been an embarressment to them, which to me said that he lacked self-esteem, felt he'd been a failure in every way (professionally and relationally), which probably made him distance himself from his daughter.

On the OPs point about why he was invited at all, I would just say that every daughter wants her daddy to love her and show he's proud of her. And even if he hasn't done that in the past, she would not give up hope that he would change.

You're right and it made no sense except that it made the daughter look like a brat/b*tch, Mary Kay Place (that was her, right?) look like a cold exwife/b*tch and 'Harvey'/Dustin Hoffman looked like a nebbish? Why did they need to resort to the stereotypes?

Only Emma Thompson appeared 'normal.' None it made much sense. We certainly did not care more about Harvey by making him look like an old, out of touch loser (this would have made him less appealing, not more appealing to Emma/Kate).

Since I clicked off this movie I really don't know how it it "ended" (why should I care? I can just make up an 'ending' of my own.) I didn't like this movie and wish I had my $4.99 Pay Per View fee back.......but all in all, it was still watchable, unlike 'The Reader'..........which was really the PITS.

(Oops....just found out that "Jean" was played by Kathy Baker...but she does look like Mary Kay Place)

I totally agree! I was absolutely heartbroken; I'm also a woman who had a fairly good father. But I got the feeling the mother kind of dominated the daughter and pushed the father away, long before they were divorced. Harvey did say "they" were embarrassed by him. I thought he was more real and authentic than the mother, stepfather, daughter, etc.

I think the mother wanted someone with more money and in a social status. She took the daughter with her. Harvey never had much chance to be a good father. He was shut out early on. Remember--this divorce would have been at least twenty years ago? The courts weren't as adamant about father's rights then. Men were just shut out and frequently gave up. He should have fought harder for his daughter, but I get the feeling he lost her a long time ago due to the mother's possessiveness. She was all about appearances, anyway.

I thought the fact that Harvey was ready to miss his daughter's reception in order to make a business meeting was indicative of how he had always focused on his career and neglected his relationship with his daughter -- and his wife, which no doubt contributed to their divorce.

So you have a guy who hasn't made being a father a priority when he was living in the same home, and once he is living elsewhere, he saw her even less. He could have stayed in her life, but he didn't. Meanwhile his ex remarried and her new husband filled the father role that Harvey was not filling.

I don't consider the daughter a bitch for having her step-dad walk her down the aisle. The bio dad is not automatically entitled to it. It is a position of honor for the person who has had the father role in her life. That scene showed it was her step-father, not Harvey. And that was the choice he made.

You must be the change you seek in the world. -- Gandhi

I did feel a bit bad for him just because he was the main character but it was probably his fault. They didn't go into what he did other than apparently leave the family. Some fathers are pretty awful and just being the bio father doesn't automatically mean they're entitled to things.

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I agree...

I can't help but think it was sort of a slip-up of the writers or whoever. Putting him on an airplane alone, in a hotel alone (excluding him from the house everyone else was in), arranging his seat far from the bride and groom's family... I'm guessing this was all written in so that we can see how isolated Harvey feels and why, but who would logically do that? It all seems so over-done.

As far as I can tell, Harvey wasn't alcoholic or abusive, he just prioritized his work too much and was a bit negligent, or wasn't particularly affectionate or something (which doesn't seem <i>too</i> unusual or terrible by other fathering standards).

But no matter how much his daughter may have hated him (and it didn't seem she did), it just doesn't seem logical not to have a seat for him near his daughter at the table at the reception party, or to decide to have the step-father give her away. Couldn't she arrange for both her step father and Harvey to give her away, just to be considerate? And her mother couldn't fit one more person into that house, just to show there's no hard feelings?

Again, I think the writer or whoever may have melodramatized Harvey's sense of isolation.