Four Weddings and a Funeral... now a period drama?

[Fruitarian123]

So, this weekend I rewatched Four Weddings and a Funeral with a bottle of PG.

It struck me, that even only 28 years later, the film is now basically a period drama. Lavish weddings, morning suits, whimsical characters living in Bayswater flats, Landys in London etc. etc.

What do you think? British society has diverged so much in such a short space of time.

It reminds me of that book “The Sloane Ranger Handbook”. Going to elaborate weddings every weekend (in fairness that was my summer when I was 29), living in flatshares in smart areas despite not being particularly well paid. There are probably still people who live like that but fewer I think.

What's PG?

It's about the upper upper middle class and their aristocratic mates, though (with a couple of plebs thrown in to add amusement). None of those people ever had to work for a living, though some of them choose to. It's the Boris Johnson, David Cameron class, but the charming liberal boho version. They haven't changed, it's just the economic gap between them and everyone below them on the class scale has got bigger.

@Bollockstothat Who are the plebs?

I don't think life is so very different nowadays for the twenty-something City workers from comfortable backgrounds who I see dressed up to the nines and clearly heading off to weddings when I nip to the bakers on a Saturday morning. Some of them even still drive. Just like in Four Weddings the ones with inherited family money are living in palatial homes and the ones who have to live on their wages are in rented flat shares.

The country houses of the Home Counties are still hosting weddings every Saturday of the summer.

Morning suits probably less common.

Charlotte Cornwell's character appears to be broke and not posh - she's presumably a uni mate.

It was always a bit of a fantasy.

And Simon Callow's character I think, despite his accent - it's been a while since I've seen it but isn't the funeral supposed to be in the area he grew up?

I can't remember what the deal was with the gay couple. Given the ages it would seem more plausible for John Hannah to be a member of the core friendship group and Simon Callow to be adopted in to the group as his partner, but I'm not sure that's how it's written.

Of course that's the one area in which it definitely is a period piece: Charles' belated realisation that those two were only single because they were legally prevented from marriage couldn't happen nowadays , you'd probably need to restructure the film to include their wedding.

This film was basically my 20s 😂 DH still has his morning suit hanging in the wardrobe- he was most put out when I suggested that he might never get to wear it again. Really feels like something from another era.

Presumably Pinot Grigio

I think FWAAF had some dated elements when it first came out.

The man drinking with Charles, in the hotel, for example. He referred to women as "fillies" and mentioned that the boy he fagged for at public school "buggered" him - no one has spoken like that since the fifties.

It’s toff fantasy written for the benefit of Americans who think this is what Britain is like. Take away the outfits and it’s no more reflective of British society in 1994 than it is now

It's not representative of the whole of British society but then Brassed Off isn't representative of the lives of the cast of Made In Chelsea.

More to the point, wedding weekends aren't representative of anyone's real lives. You get dressed up in clothes which you only wear for those events, you hang out with friends who you tend to see at those events. You leave your jobs and the twentieth/twenty-first centuries behind and take part distinctive rituals centuries old, which for "big" weddings are dressed up to suggest a fairy-tale element.

I think that "big" weddings with lots of money spent on them nowadays look not dissimilar to "big" weddings at any time from 1980 onwards. The only difference is the presence of mobile phones, the absence of cigarettes and the fact that some of the couple getting married are same sex.

I agree that the "fillies" bloke is anachronistic even for a character who's meant to be anachronistic.

Have you heard of Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees mogg?

These people exist, their children grow up int he same closed off privileged circles. That mindset does sadly still exist.

That was about the fillies comment sorry - quite didn’t work

It was incredibly dated when it came out too

@overnightangel

It was, and is representative of a section of UK society.

Much of that film resonates with my DH'a social circle. Obviously it's dated, but that was us in 2013/14: wedding every weekend, big country houses, odd B&Bs, old English pubs, silk dresses and big hats for ladies and always morning suits for men, fancy sports cars as the norm, hectic flat shares for others.

Drunken Bore man at the b&b reminds me of several drunken bores I've met at weddings and drinks parties. Sadly not confined to the 1950s

A period drama seems a good description, or at least 'of its time'.

Yes, plenty of out of touch gents around...

Rees Mogg has never changed a nappy...

I think it was more the fact that the drunk man's comments were considered funny at the time... that seems dated now.

Yes, plenty of men like this still exist.

I think it was more the fact that the drunk man's comments were considered funny at the time... that seems dated now.

Were they? I think the joke was about Charles getting stuck with an appalling, boorish man and managing to escape-I don’t think people found all the stuff about “fillies” amusing.

I think they overdid his character... the whole film is a bit OTT. I enjoyed it at the time..