by Deborah Lipp
Four Weddings and a Funeral turns 25 today. This is probably not also the number of times I’ve seen it, but it might be. I’m sure if you add the times Professor Spouse and I have each seen it, we exceed that number. To say, therefore, that this is a beloved movie is a ridiculous understatement.
Here’s what we’re going to cover after the jump to celebrate its birthday...
- Four Weddings is highly quotable
- It features the best use of "fuck," and its variations, this side of Get Shorty
- Screenwriter Richard Curtis excels at movies that are kind-heartd and generous
- Four Weddings isn't perfect, but I will teach you the trick of making it perfect
Quotable
When Professor Spouse and I make suggestions—about plans for the evening or what have you—one of us will say to the other,
That would be mice.”
There is simply no watching Say Yes to the Dress without calling upon
She looks like a big meringue.”
Should Rupert Vansittart appear on our television, say, on Game of Thrones, neither the Professor nor I can remember his name, but we’ll immediately blurt,
I think I’m in there.”
Other favorites include:
There’s a sort of greatness to your lateness.”
Odd decision.”
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spigot.”
The F Word
Charles (Hugh Grant) says “Fuck” or “Oh fuck” seven times, mostly while running late, plus one “What the fuck”. He says “Fuck it” four times.
Scarlett (Charlotte Coleman) has an additional five “Fuck”s, making Scarlett and Charles a concert of lateness greatness fucks.
Magnificently, Charles also says two of my very favorite things:
Fuck fuckety fuck
and, of course, the classic
Fuck-a-doodle-doo.
Curtis’s Kind Heart
Richard Curtis is probably best known for the movies he’s made with Hugh Grant, starting with this one, and including Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love, Actually. He’s funny, he’s smart, but part of what makes him stand out is the gentleness with which he approaches flawed people.
One of the sterling qualities of Four Weddings is the deftness with which Curtis understands friendship. The group: Charles, Scarlett, Fiona (Kristen Scott Thomas) and her brother Tom (James Fleet), Matthew (John Hannah) and Gareth (Simon Callow), and Charles’ brother David (David Bower), have an easy, recognizable naturalism. They have assumptions about one another, they forgive foibles, they keep secrets, they reveal, they empathize, they touch, hug, and fix each other. The script is restrained in its exposition, so you learn gradually who they are, as if one of them had invited you to a party and you had to catch up with the rest of them. You may or may not know from the opening scene that Gareth and Matthew are a couple—in 1994 it was less common to see in a mainstream movie. Similarly, you might or might not assume that roommates Charles and Scarlett are a couple—they are not—which might also serve as a blind for Gareth and Matthew. This group just feels right, in a way that lets you slip right in, so that the film itself is the party you’re invited to.
But more than that, Curtis is there to make sure everyone turns out all right. Love can be cruel, but Curtis cannot. Even when he does something simply awful to someone, even when that person is, themselves, kind of awful, he eases the blow.
It’s there in the closing moments of Four Weddings. Henrietta (Anna Chancellor) is treated hideously by the circumstances of the film, and she’s, moreover, not a very likeable person. But everyone sympathizes with her, and in the end, we see her happily married. The closing montage of (mostly) wedding photos is meant to let you know that everyone turns out all right. Yes, every couple we see together by the end gets married, but broken-hearted Matthew is also joyful with his handsome new man. Best of all, Fiona, with whom fate dealt most cruelly by having her fall in love with her friend, marries Prince Charles. Sure, 25 years later that turns out not to be true, but he was available at the time and it was a great match!
The sweetness with which the script leaves no one behind is what moves me anew, each time I watch.
How to Perfect Four Weddings and a Funeral
I have so far omitted the glaring flaw of Four Weddings: Andie MacDowell. She’s staggeringly bad. So here’s what I want you to do:
Pop Four Weddings and a Funeral into your Blu-ray player. At the same time, take your Blu-ray of Notting Hill and stand it up next to the TV. Now turn your head to the side and squint.
Voila! You now have Four Weddings and a Funeral co-starring Julia Roberts: The perfect movie.