It was raining so hard he had to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation.
It was unsuccessful.
It’s the light touch and leisurely, respectful approach which makes Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994) a success. It concerns a small group of Brits, unmarried, and how one of their members, Charles, falls for an American named Carrie at a wedding they attend, as she does for him. After a night of charm and lust, she disappears and he is left confused, for he has never considered himself to be marriage material in view of his failures in the realm of romance. A few months later, Carrie appears at another wedding that the friends also attend, but this time with fiancee in tow. Eventually, Charles and Carrie end up in bed again, which simply confuses the situation the more.
At Carrie’s wedding, though, the group suffers a loss as one of them, Gareth, proclaiming that they should all be in pursuit of spouses, proceeds to collapse and die. The consequent funeral is the pivot of the movie, emphasizing that life is a temporary condition, a condition that must be taken advantage of while it exists. As Charles’ main interest is now married and off the market, he returns to a previous love and, not belaboring the audience with a painful courtship (at least not in the TV version which I witnessed), we are once again in a church, preparing for the inevitable wedding of Charles to an old love.
But when Carrie shows up, haggard and without a husband, the wedding, not to mention Charles’ none-too-stable temperament, is at immediate risk of the consequences of the differential between societal expectations and the inner human need for self-respect.
It’s light and fun, and I enjoyed it, mostly, even if I didn’t quite believe in the chemistry between Charles and Carrie.
