And we're back with another entry in the Oscar Film Journal, here at Enuffa.com! Time to head back to that grand decade known as the 1990s!
Today it's the British rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral, directed by Mike Newell from a script by Richard Curtis, and starring Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Simon Callow. Inspired by a period in his own life when Curtis went to literally dozens of weddings, this film is your garden-variety meet-cute story, told in an inventive manner, mostly through the titular events.
Hugh Grant plays Charles, a handsome but socially awkward bachelor, whose group of unmarried friends and relatives routinely gets invited to various nuptial ceremonies en masse. Charles and his roommate Scarlett are chronically late to these events, usually dashing in just before the bride makes her entrance. We're introduced to numerous characters and get a sense of their various quirks and relationships to each other, but the exposition is kept mostly organic; we don't even learn what any of them does for work, as Curtis felt they wouldn't be having work-related conversations at these events.
The main story thread is set in motion when Charles meets Carrie, an American working in the UK, whom Kristin Scott Thomas's character Fiona more or less describes to him as a slut. Charles and Carrie immediately take a liking to each other and have a one-night stand, but the next morning she informs him she has to return to the US. Three months later they run into each other again, at another wedding, and it turns out she's now engaged to a much older Englishman. But they hook up again anyway, Carrie later invites Charles to her own wedding, and Charles' confession of his feelings for Carrie doesn't convince her to call it off. Thus Charles must decide whether to wait things out or move on and find love elsewhere.
The storyline here isn't particularly novel, but the film's structure is what makes it an entertaining watch. Divided into five segments literally taking place at four weddings and one funeral (plus a few interstitial scenes in between), the film allows us to only view these characters and their interactions through narrow windows of time. Thus we have to stay actively engaged to stay on top of the various threads. The script is also steeped in dry, restrained, awkward British humor, a hallmark of UK comedies. Grant's performance is just as much about pauses and facial expressions as it is about his actual dialogue. FWAAF is definitely not presented as a typical American rom-com, even if the basic narrative is.
The latter is for me what holds this film back from greatness. As with most rom-coms, the script wants us to feel some kind of deep chemistry between Charles and Carrie, but doesn't show enough of that to be truly convincing. Nor is it made clear why Carrie so hastily gets engaged to the middle-aged Hamish; for a woman with a free-loving past it seems out of character to so quickly go all in on such a pompous, un-romantic fellow. That plot point feels out of nowhere and somewhat unearned, just to create the "will they or won't they" conflict every romance film needs. And the eventual resolution is incredibly trite and formulaic, right down to cheeseball dialogue like "Is it raining? I didn't notice." Come on Rich....
I didn't feel a great deal of chemistry between Grant and MacDowell either; they're both pleasant enough and I believed their early interest in each other, but by the time of Charles's awkward soul unburdening things felt engineered rather than genuine. If anything I found myself rooting for Charles to reciprocate Fiona's romantic feelings, which isn't a good thing if the script wants him to end up with Carrie.
Overall Four Weddings is an admirable attempt at an original take on the rom-com form. It's certainly never boring or groan-inducing like so many others and genuinely tries to inject some grown-up profundity into the mix. But the narrative arc could've used some retooling to make it feel more substantive than just a clever, gimmicky way to tread well-worn territory.
I give the film *** out of ****.
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