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Four Weddings and a Funeral | Year: 1994 Directed: - Mike Newell Actors/Actresses: - Hugh Grant - Andie MacDowell - Kristin Scott Thomas - Rowan Atkinson What a disappointment! I rented Four Weddings assuming it's reputation as the quintessential romantic comedy would guarantee I would enjoy it. I got out my pop corn and tissues, ready to be won over by Hugh and Andi...what an awful letdown. I wanted to love this film, really I did, but it falls flat. The biggest problem is that I had no connection to Andi McDowellâs character at all, she comes off as cold and just m Picture-Perfect Romantic Comedy A wonderful movie to watch with someone you love (or could see yourself loving somewhere down the line). The question of commitment rears its ugly head over and over, and makes it appear Charles (Hugh Grant) is unable to do so. In fact, the film seems to make the case he's been biding his time waiting for the thunderbolt to hit from out of the blue; when it finally does (in the person of Andie MacDowell), it misfires a few times. The film is enhanced by not being teddibly British (but suffers from not showing enough of Britain -- it might as well have been filmed in Toronto for all we saw of the countryside and Scotland). The supporting cast is marvelous, with Kristin Scott-Thomas and John Hannah moving on to bigger and better things. Andie MacDowell has been unfairly described as the weak link, but her character is rather ill-defined and flighty to begin with, and she didn't write the awful "Is it raining? I hadn't noticed" eye-roller at the end. Friends have told me other actresses could have been much better in the role; I highly doubt it. Definitely worth grabbing on video. The DVD holds no significant extras -- kind of a disappointment, since the screenplay book shows many deleted scenes and rejected TV spot scripts -- *some* of them must have been filmed. "There's a sort of greatness to your lateness" Four Weddings and a Funeral is an extremely funny film. If the opening sequence doesn't make you laugh, nothing will. And conversely, if Matthew's moving rendition of W. H. Auden's "Stop all the clocks. . ." poem doesn't leave you close to tears, then you must be truly hard-hearted. Unfortunately though, what could have been an excellent comedy has a major flaw. Charles (Hugh Grant) is a likeable chap whose friends are all getting married, leaving him as a sort of perpetual Best Man. Then American Carrie (Andie MacDowell) enters the picture and causes Charles to reassess his thoughts on marriage. Grant has charisma in spades, but sadly MacDowell does not. In fact, she is perhaps one of the least charismatic actresses ever. Not only that, but the limit of her acting ability seems to be a toothpaste-advertisement-style smile. Fortunately the casting of Charles's motley collection of single friends is excellent, and one can't help thinking he would be better off marrying one of them. The film is almost fly-on-the-wall in its style, which gives it realism and allows it to explore the relationships within the group of friends on an intimate and everyday level. Hence the subtle humour works better than, for example, Rowan Atkinson's very obvious laugh-line attempts as a preacher with a penchant for Spoonerisms. As one character notes, weddings have a habit of blending together in the memory and the director has played on this, creating four weddings that are visually similar and yet distinct. And of one of them is particularly memorable for the fact that it doesn't actually include a marriage ceremony. At its conclusion the film shows that whilst marriage is a noble institution, it is not for everybody. Great Movie . . . Ugh! Except for Andie MacDowell! Yet another smashing British comedy. Yes . . . Yes . . . It would have been perfect if not for Andie MacDowell. The movie carries on rather wittily (if not cynically) as seven friends: one pair of siblings: Charles and Scarlet; another pair of siblings, decidedly richer: Fiona and Tom; a pair of homosexual lovers: Garreth and Matthew; and a deaf man: David; attend four weddings (one being Charles'own) and a funeral with a particular air of skepticism. Hugh Grant plays the main character, Charles, who in the first wedding is the best man, the tardy best man. During the reception, Charles falls in love with Andie MacDowell's character, the uncharismatic Carrie. That night the two "make love." The following morning is another wedding at which Tom is the best man (hilarious wedding indeed!) and Charles arrives late again. He finds Carrie's there also to discover that she is engaged to a Scottish "gentle"man, after which the two end up in bed again. Over the course of the movie, and after a considerable period since their last lovemaking session, Charles receives Carrie's wedding invitation and the gift list. She asks him to help her pick out a wedding dress, then accompanies her to coffee where she gives him the lowdown on her thirty-three sex partners. Charles actually attends her Scottish wedding (still in love with her). After which he decides to settle down with a woman who, for lack of a better word, stalked him after they dated. Carrie shows up, confesses her divorce to Scottish bloke, and her love for Charles. In the end Charles denies his bride at the altar and lives happily ever after with Carrie after she agrees that she will not marry him. Yes, it' just that empty. Only where Charles and Carrie are concerned, though! MacDowell is just . . . all wrong for this movie. How Grant's character could still love her after he discovered she was a jaunty harlot (33?!) and engaged escapes me! MacDowell wasn't even a likeable harlot (Kristin Scott Thomas's character, Fiona, said it right: American slut). Her plain country voice just clashed horribly with Grant's charming British one. Nothing she said was funny. She just should not have been here. Another American actress would have been better suited, or a British actress even better. Having said that, the rest of the movie is fantastic. Most of the humor is laughable, at other times it is clever without being sidesplitting, like most British humor. James Fleet is wonderful as the bumbling Tom. Buy Four Weddings And A Funeral at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  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