To say Four Weddings and a Funeral is CRAP

[DerelictWreck]

I've just watched Four Weddings and a Funeral for the first time on Netflix.

It's terrible! Like I genuinely don't understand how it's so well reviewed? Some of the characters are good but there's so many of them it's hard to keep track, and the whole things revolves and Charles pinning for a woman with whom he's had one conversation and slept with twice.

She cheats on her fiancé with Charles, is super flippant with feelings, ruins his wedding and he still loves her?! Meanwhile he hurts every woman he dates and doesn't seem to understand the concept of an alarm clock.

Am I missing something?! What other films are overrated - shall I even bother with When Harry Met Sally?

Yeah, Jaws is still iconic IMO. That bit where Chief Brodie goes to chuck bait into the water, and the shark rears up, and he sits bolt upright.....

And there is that classic line... 'You're gonna need a bigger boat!'

Or THIS bit.

Go to 50 seconds in!

I always loved the scene where AM recounts her bed fellows. Less than Madonna, more than Princess Di... You're no. 32

YABU, obviously! love it. and love actually. draw the line at notting hill however, that was bloody awful!

To whoever asked about trulymadlydeeply - I have only recently watched it (my DM wanted me too as she loved it). God it was wonderful, I adore alan rickman anyway and it is heartbreaking and beautifully acted.

TMD is one of my all time favourite films.
4WAAF deserves a tiny corner of 1990s film history for John Hannah reading “Funeral Blues”.

The only place that any Richard Curtis film went wrong was is casting some sub standard American actress to play a lead role.
Britain has some of the most amazing actresses in the world.
My favourite Brit pack includes
Alison Steadman
Brenda Blethyn
Celia Imrie
Imelda Staunton
Zoe Wanamaker
Emma Thompson
To name but a few, agreed these all d’un certain age but I challenge anyone to find a finer group of outstanding talent!

Just wanted to add Geraldine McKewan
Julia MacKenzie

Couldn’t sleep last night so re-watched Four Weddings thanks to this thread (cheers ! Wonder if Netflix has noticed a trend?)
YABVVVU, for me it hasn’t lost any of it’s charm, it takes me right back to watching it on VHS at sleepovers as a teen. Still cried at the funeral. For the person up thread who couldn’t see how they were all friends - Tom & Fiona are siblings, as are Charles & David, Matthew & Gareth are partners, so I presumed maybe Charles, Fiona & Matthew met at uni. I always presumed Scarlet was Charles’ sister as well but re-watching that’s not actually made clear. Maybe he met her when he moved to London after uni and she became friends with everyone then. Cardinal rule of house-sharing is don’t shag people you live with, that why they never get together.

Perhaps if you didn’t see it at the time you miss a lot of the context. Most of the actors were fairly unknown before Four Weddings (Andie Macdowell was the biggest star), it was a small British film that unexpectedly made it big in the US, the bloody credits song by Wet Wet Wet has a lot to answer for, it was number 1 in the charts for months (hence the pisstake cover of it Bill Nighy’s character does in Love Actually). Liz Hurley wearing that safety pin dress to the premiere was big news, before we all had the internet in our pockets and celebrity gossip was all tabloids and magazines.

I never ‘got’ Notting Hill, but used to adore Love Actually as a Xmas tradition, until I read the Jezebel article I Rewatched Love Actually And Am Here To Ruin It For All Of You and now I can’t not see the sexism and privelige running through the whole thing. Bloody feminism ruining fun I’m aware Four Weddings has similar issues, although not quite as bad, I doubt it passes Bechdel and it is very white, posh and ‘of it’s time’ but at least it features gay and disabled characters amongst the main group of friends and their sexuality/disability isn’t exactly the focus. Apart from the tragic subtext that Gareth & Matthew were very much in love but would never have the opportunity to marry.

Everything has changed so much in the world since Four Weddings I can imagine watching it for the first time from 2018 it doesn’t work. But it worked magnificently in 1994 so you have to imagine yourself back then .

I actually think TWAAF was responsible for finally getting brides to ditch Diana style dress monstrosities (for a few years at least). I actually got married the year before the film and struggled to find a dress that wouldn’t swamp my 5’2 frame amongst the little bo-peep style bodice and bustles.

6 months after she looks like a meringue there were some really elegant dresses out there.

It's shit. Thought so when it first came out and didn't understand the overwhelming love for it. I did go and see Notting Hill and enjoyed parts of it. Love Actually I would put in my top ten most cringeworthy awful films ever made.

YABU.

Carrie is an appalling human being though, you’re right there. Baffling that Charles would choose her over Fi (Kristin Scott Thomas is one of the most beautiful women ever).

I read an interview with Hugh Grant in which he said Richard Curtis really fought against his casting- he wanted someone less posh and more normal-looking. All the foppish, stuttering uncertainty was totally at odds with the real Hugh Grant at the time who was a suave womaniser so all his friends apparently thought it was hilarious he was seen as such a nice guy, and was cast as a variant of that for the next twenty years.

FWAF is much much better and has far fewer problems that Love Actually- despite Emma Thompson, the Jezebel article is spot on sadly.

I love it. The bit where Charles is trapped in the bathroom listening to Bernard and Lydia having sex and eventually walks out waving a toothbrush saying: 'Found it!'

After his David Cassidy speech when she says it was lovely and he says: 'Thanks. I thought about it a lot. I wanted to get it just right.'

And that superior cow in the shop where the wedding list is held being so rude to him.

And Tom: 'Anyone else tread in a cowpat?'

I watched it again this week because of this thread!

Still got it.

Why though, does she do that weird "when are you going to announce our engagement" thing after the first shag? She's done it with 30 odd people by then and never been engaged before. She wasn't joking, she looked dead serious and only laughed when he did.

Why?

I love this film, but agree that Andie McDowell didn't do it any favours and was completely outshone by the more beautiful and more talented Kristin Scott Thomas.

It’s sad now with the actress who played Scarlett died of an asthma attack.

Hugh Grant is brilliant in Paddington 2.

Love Four Weddings and a Funeral . . . but it was released the day before I got married, and lots of friends were getting married around that time too.

As for When Harry met Sally, that's an even fabber film. We're planning a old girls' hen night for a younger work colleague soon - sleepover with When Harry met Sally, Working Girl, Fatal Attraction and any other "old" films any of you would like to suggest. But not Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.

Hugh Grant is also good in "An Awfully Big Adventure" - plays a horrid character in that.

I watched When Harry Met Sally again recently and it still stands up really well. Sally Fisher is very good as the best friend and there are some great set pieces.

Didn't like Love Actually at the time - felt too manipulated. Parts of it are very good but overall it was too much.

I love it.Belongs to a different time which probably doesn't translate anymore.

I love it& I know plenty of London people with whom it still resonates. The perma-single crew at weddings and anyone who generally can't take a wedding too seriously.

So many classic lines, too. "Scarlett, you're blind! She looks like a big meringue" changed wedding fashion for the better!
I would assume Fi ends up with Prince Charles because it was about the time of the separation & he's a posh Charles!

I think it's the best Curtis rom-com bar Android McDowell. I found Love Actually far too itsy bity & overdone.

AnneLovesGilbert I think that was Andie McDowell's wooden attempt at doing a deadpan delivery. She was so one dimensional in the film, when she did do a line that could be read as serious or sarcastic it just didn't work.

I think it's a lovely escapist film - good looking people, lovely houses, picturesque weddings etc. Undemanding and easy to watch, humorous with one or two very poignant scenes.

Andie McDowell was the only negative, as far as I was concerned. She just didn't fit in at all.

Does anyone else remember Jack and Sarah then or was it just me?

Love Jack and Sarah, great film, made me cry.

Adore FWAAF, Notting Hill and Love Actually. Can't stand the MN hatred of LA, seems that people jump on the band wagon a bit. I have read the article but think it's BS. Its a bloody film, just watch it, enjoy it or don't but don't make a big deal out of it.

FWAAF has some very funny bits in, my favourite bit is in the bar when Hugh is trying to get up to Carries room. I am not a fan of Andie McDowell in anything eother really, she's not a great actress at all and I don't feel like she fitted the part. Thought the rest of the cast worked brilliantly.

Yabvvvvu it's my favorite