Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
Country: GB
Technical: col 117m
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Simon Callow, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Hannah
Synopsis:
A chronically late and non-committal public school type has an on-off affair with an American woman he sees while attending weddings with his circle of friends.
Review:
Certainly not a study of relationships but rather an old-fashioned farce which cunningly uses the eponymous occasions for sentimental weight. Refreshingly played by an excellent cast, but barely resonating beyond its welter of cheap gags, this featherweight rom-com can be seen on repeat viewing and in the light of its writer's subsequent work to be deploying a formula that combines sitcom humour, tired out jokes around class, culture (and particularly weddings), while at the same time hankering after ballast from more dramatic ingredients: a deaf brother, a gay couple, a sudden demise. Commercially it put Britcom back on the map but is also a deeply conflicted love letter across the pond, contradicting its gags at the expense of the Americans and a shallow, gold-digging leading lady with a resolution that confirms her as the sought after grail for the hero. A cynical exercise and a badly dated one.
Country: GB
Technical: col 117m
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Simon Callow, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Hannah
Synopsis:
A chronically late and non-committal public school type has an on-off affair with an American woman he sees while attending weddings with his circle of friends.
Review:
Certainly not a study of relationships but rather an old-fashioned farce which cunningly uses the eponymous occasions for sentimental weight. Refreshingly played by an excellent cast, but barely resonating beyond its welter of cheap gags, this featherweight rom-com can be seen on repeat viewing and in the light of its writer's subsequent work to be deploying a formula that combines sitcom humour, tired out jokes around class, culture (and particularly weddings), while at the same time hankering after ballast from more dramatic ingredients: a deaf brother, a gay couple, a sudden demise. Commercially it put Britcom back on the map but is also a deeply conflicted love letter across the pond, contradicting its gags at the expense of the Americans and a shallow, gold-digging leading lady with a resolution that confirms her as the sought after grail for the hero. A cynical exercise and a badly dated one.
Country: GB
Technical: col 117m
Director: Mike Newell
Cast: Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Simon Callow, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Hannah
Synopsis:
A chronically late and non-committal public school type has an on-off affair with an American woman he sees while attending weddings with his circle of friends.
Review:
Certainly not a study of relationships but rather an old-fashioned farce which cunningly uses the eponymous occasions for sentimental weight. Refreshingly played by an excellent cast, but barely resonating beyond its welter of cheap gags, this featherweight rom-com can be seen on repeat viewing and in the light of its writer's subsequent work to be deploying a formula that combines sitcom humour, tired out jokes around class, culture (and particularly weddings), while at the same time hankering after ballast from more dramatic ingredients: a deaf brother, a gay couple, a sudden demise. Commercially it put Britcom back on the map but is also a deeply conflicted love letter across the pond, contradicting its gags at the expense of the Americans and a shallow, gold-digging leading lady with a resolution that confirms her as the sought after grail for the hero. A cynical exercise and a badly dated one.