Hulu updates ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ but misses the joyful chaos of the 1994 original
Limited series: Hulu (10 episodes; 7 reviewed); July 31 Starring: Nathalie Emmanuel, Brandon Mychal Smith, Sophia La Porta, John Reynolds, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Harish Patel, Zoe Boyle
After many were ready to proclaim their untimely death, romantic comedies have resurrected with a vengeance. “Crazy Rich Asians” was a cultural and box office sensation, and Netflix has struck gold with a series of lowstakes movies that subsequently created an entire cottage industry that runs on earnest charm and flirty banter. Combine that burgeoning success with Hollywood’s beloved “Everything old is new again” ethos, and it was probably only a matter of time before we got something like Hulu’s “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” a shiny new adaptation of one of the most iconic romantic comedies in the genre’s history.
The limited anthology series from Mindy Kaling and Matt Warburton — the team behind “The Mindy Project,” a sitcom love letter to the genre —
isn’t a reboot of director Mike Newell and writer Richard Curtis’ 1994 film. Rather, it uses its premise of a group of friends weathering four weddings and a funeral together (for better and for worse) as a basic structure for their own utterly pleasant stories. It’s also still based in London for seemingly no reason other than nostalgia; all four of the main characters are American Anglophiles who returned to the U.K. after spending a transformative semester there in college.
Now facing down the other side of 30, the friends — hapless in love and life — are trying to figure out what it is they really want, and if it’s so wildly different from the paths they’ve otherwise chosen. Maya (Nathalie Emmanuel) is an ambitious congressional aide with terrible timing and taste in men. Investment banker Craig (Brandon Mychal Smith) finds himself living large with a
This ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’ is purposefully distinct from its source material. On the plus side, Hulu’s iteration establishes itself as different from the original by the sheer fact of its casting not being entirely white.”
ton of money and a brash live-in girlfriend (Sophia La Porta) after years of playing the field; harried teacher Duffy (John Reynolds) has nursed a debilitating crush on Maya for a solid decade. Ainsley (Rebecca Rittenhouse) is a picture-perfect blonde with the Notting Hill townhouse and handsome boyfriend, Kash (Nikesh Patel), to match, and it’s her extravagant wedding (or more accurately, its aftermath) that sets everything in motion.
They’re all, in other words, deliberate romantic comedy stock characters that the series hopes to flesh out over the course of 10 episodes, a downright luxurious amount of time as compared with the movie’s two-hour length. The show doesn’t radically flip the script so much as tweak it in more three- dimensional directions; even the typical conceited rival role, embodied here in Ainsley’s competitive British friend Gemma (Zoe Boyle), gets to stretch beyond the confines of her stereotype. It is, however, worth noting that 2019’s “Four Weddings and a Funeral” is somehow more heterosexual overall than 1994’s, which includes a groundbreaking moment in which one friend gives a eulogy for the man he loved. Rather than take the opportunity to turn that subtext into text, the TV version makes the odd and frankly disappointing choice of keeping its incidental queer characters on the outer margins of the story.
So while this “Four Weddings and a Funeral” is purposefully distinct from its source material, the inevitable comparisons work both for and against it. On the plus side, Hulu’s iteration establishes itself as different from the original by the sheer fact of its casting not being entirely white. Kash’s storyline in particular is one that Curtis’ movies would — or could — never touch, and Patel reveals himself to be an able lead even as Kash is often isolated from the other characters. Emmanuel, who revealed a capacity for comic timing even in her usually dour “Game of Thrones” role, clearly relishes the chance to anchor her own story and seizes the prospect with palpable enthusiasm. Rittenhouse and Reynolds are endearing in often flat parts, though they’re rarely a match for Smith, who steals just about every scene he’s in.
The trouble comes as the show tries to sell the camaraderie and fiercely loyal bond among the characters, which should be the glue that keeps the narrative together. Instead, the sporadic moments they share when they all are on screen rarely spark in the way that the joyfully chaotic group scenes of the first “Four Weddings and a Funeral” did. We hear an awful lot about what good friends they are without the series doing much to show why. It’s perfectly nice to spend a few hours with them, but they’re not likely to make a huge impression beyond their inevitably happy endings.