FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1994 Frank Maloney
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL is a film by Mike Newell and written by Richard Curtis. It stars Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Simon Callow, James Fleet, John Hannah, Charlotte Coleman, David Bower, Corin Redgrave, and Rowan Atkinson. Rated R, for language and sexual references.
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL is a romantic comedy directed by Mike Newell, the English directory previously responsible for SOURSWEET, DANCE WITH A STRANGER, INTO THE WEST, and ENCHANTED APRIL. It is obvious Newell is more than fond of the characters in Richard Curtis's script. Indeed, there is barely mean bone in the film's entire body. Curtis has given Newell and us a somewhat gimmicky story that follows Charles (Hugh Grant) through the four weddings and the funeral of the title as he finds and loses the love of his life, a mysterious American (Andie MacDowell). The gimmicks work because Curtis crafts every scene until it gleams with a polished wit that slices up the genteel society of posh people who seem to do nothing but go to posh affairs into delectable hors d'oeuvres.
The script provides precious few explanations of who all these people are and what they do when they are not got up in cutaways and big hats. It gives us not a hint of who the MacDowell character is or why she goes to so many British weddings. She remains an enigma, mostly because she like everything else is seen strictly from Charles's point of view and Charles's is befuddled as only an English gentleman can be.
Hugh Grant's performance as Charles carries the film. It's hard to imagine any other British star carrying off this difficult role quite so well. For not only must Charles mutter, run his finger through his hair, and generally fret in his singularly confused way, but he must make himself likable to the audience in spite of the fact that he is, as one ex-girl friend says, a serial monogamist, well-intentioned enough, but a bit of a bounder. We forgive him because Grant's Charles possesses charm, charisma, and a pained vulnerability and a wonderful cast of oddly sorted friends.
Amongst these friends is Simon Callow, the gay actor/director (ROOM WITH A VIEW, BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFE) who plays one half (or perhaps two-thirds, given the size of his person and his personality) of a gay couple. These two gay men are held up explicitly as the very type of the perfect lovers, the standard against which all the straight characters judge their own efforts to mate well.
For that is the subject matter here: finding and keeping the right person. This is an intensely romantic film, despite all its hilarious humor and satiric pokes, a film that says loves is the point and the purpose, if there be any point and purpose at all. And the ways to mate are as endless and varied and personal as the people in the world.
I unreservedly recommend FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL. It will be a great date movie, a great couple's movie, even a great singles' movie. It is very funny, very sweet, and the feeling you have at the end is worth whatever you paid to get in.
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney
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