Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) – 3/5

Worth seeing, but true charm it does not have

„Four Weddings and a Funeral“ is a British live action film in the English language from 1994, so only one more year until this one has its 30th anniversary already and maybe this happened already depending on when you read this review of mine. Actually, it is also not only in the English language, but you will find some British sign language here and there as well, even during crucial parts of the film such as the moment at the ending when the deaf character interferes at a wedding. I think the actor there was deaf too, but I will get a little later to the cast. The director here is Mike Newell and this film was perhaps bis biggest career triumph as he won two BAFTAs for it, the big shots even for Best Film and Best Direction, but it was not enough to get in at the Oscars a little later. I mean the film did, also for Best Picture impressively, but no nomination for Newell there for whatever reason, only for his co-producer. The other Oscar nomination was for the screenplay and this came from Richard Curtis, who is of course very well-known for directing the other defining British romance movie from this era and the name of that one is of course „Love Actually“ and has the same lead actor. But back to this one here: These slightly under two hours did not only win Picture and Direction at Britain’s biggest awards ceremony, but also for Lead Actor and Supporting Actress and these would be Hugh Grant and Kristin Scott Thomas, who are perhaps the two biggest names attached to this project, even so many years later. If we ignore the brief inclusions of Rowan Atkinson here. Mr. Bean that is of course. Still, I have not heard from Scott Thomas in quite a while to be honest, I think since that Asian film, but Hugh Grant is still very present. What a fitting inclusion that the Oscars were held last night and that Grant presented one category together with Andie MacDowell who plays Grant’s love interest in this film here and the two, or rather Grant, actually scored one of the biggest laughs of the night there even. It’s nice. I like Grant. MacDowell meh, but then again, I also prefer the older version of Grant I guess. His performance in the film next to Meryl Streep from a while ago felt Oscar-worthy to me.

The young Grant, well he is mostly a looker, but he did not yet win me over really. You can see I gave this film here still a 3/5, but it was a close call and much closer to a 2/5 and thus a negative recommendation than to an enthusiastic 4/5. I will not mention all the other cast members, but yeah you can check out the list for yourself and it is fairly unreal how many of them got in at the BAFTAs that year. Has to be some kind of record. I also think that the film was the big breakthrough for Grant and the Oscar nomination was surely not far away. He still is without one in 2022 sadly, but oh well, he has many cool movies and interesting performances in his body of work and has been Britain’s perhaps biggest trademark actor even for quite some time now. He even won a Golden Globe for his performance here. Now, well, this was certainly too much. MacDowell was also nominated, but even if it may sound harsh, I really struggled with her significant role in this movie here. For once, she felt a bit old to be the love interest. I see she is not a lot older than Grant, but she looked like it, which of course also had to do with Grant’s juvenile charm. That he simply seemed much younger than he really was. This film reminded me a bit of a British take on „Friends“ if we look at the comedy. No surprise the two projects ran at the exact same time almost. Maybe this was the humor in general back then.

Back to MacDowell’s character, how can you really see her as likable? I mean, even if you look beyond her numerous brief relationships with me, what is up with how she was the one leaving him after their first night, how she was the one getting engaged to somebody else, how she was the walking away from him initially when he told her he sleeps at another location. How she walks away from him also after his buddy shows up on one occasion and talks to him/them. And how she then at the end shows up at his wedding and expects him to not marry the other girl, even if she does not admit it. I mean she also could have rejected her first husband. Besides, the marrying joke after their night together was also bizarre and poor delivery. Literally, all the effort has to come from Grant’s character here and of course he did not call her either, but I never felt she was a desirable female in this film, let alone the bigger love interest than anybody else. There were a few more aspects in here that caught my attention while watching the film that made her character seem fairly unlikable to me, but I do not remember them all in detail now, so I will leave it at that. You get the message anyway. I also felt that her acting was mediocre at best, not because she was really bad or anything, but the writing did not offer her a lot and she also did not elevate the material. I think McDowell’s career after this film confirms that she is simply not a very good actress.

And in terms of looks I would say that almost every single other woman in this film seemed more appealing to me, no matter if we are looking at the one Grant’s character is about to get married to in the end, who was actually really stunning. No matter if we are looking at Kristin Scott Thomas‘ character who always wanted Grant’s character, but it was not mutual and unrequited instead. Actually, I really thought early on that she was into Rowan Atkinson’s character. Or if we are looking at Scarlett who indeed finds her Rhett then and the actress Charlotte Coleman had a really tragic life story sadly. May she rest in peace. She could have been so much more, but it wasn’t meant to be. So yeah, you see from my rating that I still give the film a cautious thumbs-up, but there were moments, also some at the center of the story, where it just did not feel very realistic to me. Like how are always the same people at these weddings. How does the bride from the second wedding change her mind so quickly when it comes to kissing her future husband and marrying him just as fast. The scene in which Grant’s character hides from the horny folks was maybe a bit of a crowd-pleaser, but it was too obvious and showy and not to my liking really. I preferred the embarrassing situation where he talked to another character about his unfaithful girlfriend when he does not realize that the two are married now and not separated as he thought. In general, this was a film where you could always speculate who would be bride and groom at the next wedding ceremonies. Of course, the deaf fella and his girl are contenders too, but nope they are not among them. Just like how you can speculate who would be the one dying in this film. I will not give you the name, but the gay-themed story attached to it was an indicator that this movie is also a bit ahead of its time. I think you see at the very beginning that these two are more than just friends, long before everybody else realizes, but I do not remember specifically. One thing I still found highly unrealistic was how quickly Grant’s character is then going to get married in the end. I mean okay the girl always wanted him for years apparently, but he had limited interest gently-speaking and his buddy’s words really changed him so much that it all happens so quickly? I doubt that.

Oh well, the ending then is so-so. I mean the kissing in the rain was romantic, but all the comments about the weather were already a bit exaggerated. They also showed again that MacDowell’s comedic delivery is very, very limited, but at least her character for once made a move by showing up there then. Something nice for a change. I am getting close(r) to the end of my review now, but before it is all over, let me still talk a bit about my perception that while I saw a great deal of negative, unfunny and unrealistic in here, I must still say that there were also funny moments that made me smile and I think everybody else in the theater too. Maybe most others more than me in fact. I was already a bit worried about how the film started with the swearing sequence between the two characters there, but luckily it did get better. Grant’s character’s speech on one occasion was fairly hilarious even. I think it was the second wedding. It is up to everybody’s taste what they find the funniest in this film and opinions will surely differ, but I doubt there is anybody who does not find anything funny here at all. Would take a massive grump for that and even I am just a small one. Unfortunately, the film goes over the top on too many occasions for my taste too, like the talk about how falling in love has (not) to feel like being struck by lightning (in a positive way) and in the end they even used this metaphor then to really depict a lightning coming from the sky. So yeah, it is a fairly gimmicky film at times for sure and I have a genuinely hard time to see the charm in that, but I know others did. Overall, it’s almost a coin toss, but I will still be generous and give the outcome here a thumbs-up and cautiously positive recommendation. Not by any means a must-see though or a film you need to see at a movie theater and in any case you should go for the aforementioned „Love Actually“ first that got made by the same people pretty much, even if this is not the chronological order. Both films even got a little sequel for Red Nose Day if I remember correctly. That is all then, just one final question: Why is there a sheep on the film poster for this one here? It was maybe there briefly once, but blink and it is gone and plays no role story-wise. The poster is as chaotic as the film really.