Four Weddings and A Funeral

From the dark, dingy streets of the ’90s American crime thriller, I have diverted to the ditzy, floral planes of the '90s rom-com, Four Weddings and a Funeral. I sank into my sofa expecting to feel warm and fuzzy after this one, but when I stood up, I felt oddly torn.

The first of many films written by Richard Curtis, Four Weddings and a Funeral made me nostalgic for a decade I wasn’t even born in. The story follows (unsurprisingly) the events promised by its title, alongside the interweaving relationship of Charles (Hugh Grant) and Carrie (Andie MacDowell). Effervescent and delightful, the film explores love in its many forms: marriage, heartbreak, grief, and friendship.

The eclectic cast (each member vaguely reminiscent of a strange aunt, uncle, or indistinct family acquaintance) are effortlessly charming. Herein lies the film’s real strength: its mundane, sharp-witted, deeply affable ensemble, including Kristin Scott Thomas, Simon Callow, and Charlotte Coleman. We flick through this social circle’s escapades like short stories at the bottom of a newspaper column. We cringe at recognisably awkward interactions and chortle at the absurdity of ordinary people trying to find their place in the alcohol-fuelled madness of matrimony.

A young Hugh Grant is indeed irresistible, but by no means the standout. Perhaps this is coloured by my ambivalence towards Charles’s relationship with Carrie. They meet and sleep together at the first wedding, only for Carrie to reappear at the second, engaged. Their ensuing affair ultimately culminates in a dramatic confrontation at Charles’s own wedding. To be honest, the romance driving the plot struck me as the least interesting part of this otherwise delightful film.

Maybe Carrie was as elusive to me as she is to the other characters, but the ease with which she cheats on her husband left me puzzled, much like Charles himself. I recognise this confusion as intentional, a reflection of the messiness and inconsistency of love. Carrie owes no one an explanation, and she offers none. She, like the rest of them, is subject to impulse, contradiction, and moral ambiguity. Surely her engagement to the older, dreary stockbroker is doomed? Spoiler alert: it is. Carrie turns up at Charles’s wedding, conveniently announcing her recent divorce and prompting him to abandon his on-off girlfriend at the altar. Whilst fantastically dramatic (and awkward), the moment ultimately felt reductive, collapsing a painstakingly complex affair into what seemed like an avoidable blunder. Ultimately, I wasn’t rooting for them.

The standout performance for me is Kristin Scott Thomas as Fiona, whose emotional reserve and black humour is painfully relatable against the frenetic friendship group (we all feel like Fiona sometimes). Her confession of love to a clueless Charles is beautifully heartbreaking, refusing the easy satisfaction of a friends-to-lovers cliché. Not all of life, after all, is a ’90s rom-com.

In a similar vein, John Hannah’s devastating monologue at the long-awaited funeral bolsters the film’s emotional depth. Commemorating his long-term partner, Matthew laments the loss of his irreplaceable love, reciting Auden’s 'Funeral Blues'. Death eclipses all, and the bright tones of a romantic comedy cannot penetrate that gravity that is grief. Four Weddings confronts life in its entirety, embracing the light as readily as it does the shade. Hope is restored near the film’s end, when we glimpse Matthew with a new partner, laughing joyfully once more. The story celebrates human resilience: from the depths of loss and heartbreak, characters like Matthew continue to search for a love that can restore them. These vignettes are the film’s true heartbeat. The fleeting image of Matthew finding love again moved me far more than Charles and Carrie’s climactic kiss in the rain.

Four Weddings and a Funeral celebrates the complicated lives of normal-ish people. Maybe it’s just me, but I found myself wishing for a different ending, one in which Charles finds the love of his life in someone we never meet at all. A story in which we are allowed to witness just a fraction of this gang's wonderfully colourful life reminds us that the rom-com can never truly wrap it all up in a neat bow. Is that drainingly cynical? Probably. I am British after all.

7/10

Yours sincerely,

The Film Buff