four weddings and a funeral 1994

Jordan farley, news editor ever feel like you don’t need to see a film because you’ve absorbed 99.9 per cent of it by cultural osmosis? that’s what happened to me with classic richard Curtis romcom Four Weddings

And A Funeral. By the time i was old enough to be interested in a Brit-com about upper middle-class folk and their first world problems (i was eight in 1994, and couldn’t have been less interested in weddings, let alone funerals), everything from hugh Grant’s opening salvo of f-bombs to andie Macdowell’s infamous declaration of love (“is it still raining? i hadn’t noticed”) had seeped into my marrow thanks to its hard rotation on every television in the country. or so i thought.

for starters, i realised early doors i had no idea who actually requires the titular funeral, which made for a compelling guessing game amid the effortlessly charming, none-moreBritish bumbling. hugh Grant’s anti-darcy remains a star-maker of a performance, Mike newell’s unfussy direction never gets in the way of richard Curtis’ snappy script and the supporting cast of oddballs are an instantly endearing bunch. less successful: andie Macdowell’s performance – terrible at the time by all accounts, it’s aged like a mouldy loaf of bread left in direct sunlight for 25 years. and i don’t think i ever needed to see hugh Grant in shorts. Still, it’s loads better than Love Actually.