El Padre de la Novia as it’s also known centres on Billy (Andy Garcia), an exile who worked his way up from nothing to become a successful architect in Miami with his devoted wife Ingrid (an extremely rare acting role for Gloria Estefan) at his side. Together with screenwriter Matt Lopez, he’s shifted the traditionally Wasp-y tale into more diverse, and dramatically interesting, territory with a Cuban-American family at its centre. It’s such a familiar set-up that our minds instantly go to sitcom territory – dad with wagging finger, daughter with hands on hips – and so to its credit, Mexican director Gary Alazraki’s straight-to-streaming redo manages to feel bigger than that, not just because it looks like a splashy theatrical release but because in dragging the oft-told story into the 2020s, he finds a way to make it feel specific and culturally expansive.
