Four Weddings & a Funeral - review

I’m ashamed to admit it as a fan of both movies and Hugh Grant, but before today I’d never watched Four Weddings and a Funeral. I hadn’t avoided it, but there had never seemed a time before to watch it as I tend to watch newer movies or ones I’ve taped on the TV, so it waited patiently on the DVD shelf until today I finally took it off and opened the case.

Charles (Hugh Grant) is always first choice for best man, but has never stood at the end of the aisle as a groom. As someone who prefers to spend time with his close knit circle of friends rather than show commitment, Charles is always late to weddings but somehow muddles through his duties.

With a number of weddings arranged for the summer, Charles prepares himself to watch singletons become couples, but as he attends the first wedding of the summer someone catches his eye, an American lady called Carrie (Andie MacDowell) who shares his attraction. After spending the night together she leaves to travel back home, but they meet again at the second wedding of the movie only for Charles to discover Carrie is engaged and will soon be attending her own wedding – the third of the movie.

As Charles watches the only woman he’s seriously considered marrying get hitched to another man, despite declaring his love for her, she allows the wedding to go ahead. But things take a dark turn as one of the group suffers a heart attack and provides the funeral part of the movie.

With the group of friends reeling at the loss of such a vibrant and big personality, they all realise that love can come in any shape at any time leading to the fourth wedding of the movie – Charles’s own to ex-girlfriend Henrietta (nicknamed Duck Face).

As Charles prepares to finally attend his own wedding, doubts creep in when Carrie arrives and informs him she’s now separated causing him to wonder whether he’s making the right decision, but as Henrietta makes her way down the aisle and the couple prepare to say their vows, is it too late for Charles and Carrie?

I found this movie to be a typical rom-com, which unusually for a Hugh Grant movie left me a bit disappointed. Slightly cheesy, but maybe that’s because it was made in the early 90’s, I’m glad I’ve finally watched it, but I wouldn’t rush to watch it again.