Four Weddings and A Funeral(1994)- User Reviews

The thing that really makes this movie better than most wedding-comedies is the underlying sorrow beneath the comedy.

Even from the opening scene, in which the characters are dragging themselves out of bed to go to another wedding, we feel their loneliness and pain at being single, at not having anyone in their lives who understands them.

In lieu of a love-life,six British friends have huddled together for warmth and companionship, seeking comfort at an event which throws in their faces, their undesirability to the opposite sex.

Among them is Charles (Hugh Grant) who -when the movie opens- is incredibly late to a ceremony in which he just happens to be the best man...on top which he forgets the rings (which means the bride and groom have to settle for hilariously ugly ones in order to consacrate their marriage).

"There's such a greatness to your lateness."
This from Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) who's been secretly in love with Charles for years but hasn't shown it, since the feeling obviously isn't mutual.

At the reception, Charles manages to put his foot in his mouth concerning the wife of an acquaintance, before bumping into Carrie (Andie McDowell), a classy American for whom he ditches his friends to have a steamy one-night stand but can't see again because Carrie is returning to America.

Cut to the second wedding, to which Charles and his sister Scarlet (Charlotte Coleman), are late yet again.

After a ceremony performed by an inept Vicar, matters adjourn to the reception, where Charles first thinks he's in Heaven when running into Carrie,but soon realizes he's in Hell when it turns out Carrie is engaged, and he's left sitting at a table surrounded by all his ex-girlfriends.

After an unsavory run-in with the bride and groom, Charles runs into Henrietta (Anna Chancellor), the most hysterical of his former love interests, and his horror is complete.

Before he knows what is happening, he has hooked up with Carrie again, and is helping her buy a gown for wedding number three (her own).

Despite an attempt on Charles' part to get Carrie to call the whole thing off, she goes through with it...

Then, in the ultimate manifestation of a bad omen, there's a death at the reception.

This element of tragedy and loss, is part of what gives the movie is three-dimensional quality.

It's a sobering part of the story, one that reminds us of our humanity as well as our mortality...AND the fact that life is not a fairy-tale, not for anyone.

Resigned to having lost Carrie forever, Charles out of loneliness decides to marry Hen (the aforementioned hysterical girlfriend), and finds himself regretting this decision...but can't think of a pleasent way out of it.

The clock is ticking...
The Vicar is asking "Do you take this woman?"
And Charles can't bring himself to say he won't, even though Carrie is free,having left her husband a while ago.

Simon Callow as Gareth adds tremendously to this story. There's a theory his character has about marriage being "the ultimate ice-breaker" to a stagnent relationship, and there's some definite truth to that, even if it's hard to define.

John Hannah also adds as Matthew, and I wish I could do them both justice but I really can't.

Hugh Grant is terrific as is Andie MacDowell, and Kristin Scott Thomas is, as always, impeccable in her small but enhancing role.

Mike Newell directs the movie perfectly, and really does a good job of bringing it's message across:

That marriage is a sacred institution, not to be taken lightly but, as the Vicar puts it "Reverently, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God."

I think that society would be doing much better if it took some of these words to heart.

And I think that it's its careless trivialization of marriage and it's meaning which has led to it's breakdown.