Четыре свадьбы и одни похороны

1994 film by Mike Newell

Four Weddings and a Funeral is a 1994 British romantic comedy film directed by Mike Newell. It is the first of several films by screenwriter Richard Curtis to star Hugh Grant, and follows the adventures of Charles (Grant) and his circle of friends through a number of social occasions as they each encounter romance. Andie MacDowell co stars as Charles's love interest Carrie, with Kristin Scott Thomas, James Fleet, Simon Callow, John Hannah, Charlotte Coleman, David Bower, Corin Redgrave, and Rowan Atkinson in supporting roles. The film was made in six weeks, cost under £3 million, and became an unexpected success and the highest grossing British film in history at the time, with worldwide box office total of $245.7 million, and receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Additionally, Grant won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the film won the BAFTA Awards Best Film, Best Direction, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Scott Thomas. The film's success propelled Hugh Grant to international stardom, particularly in the United States. A 2017 poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers, and critics for Time Out magazine ranked it the 74th best British film ever. Curtis reunited director Newell and the surviving cast for a 25th anniversary reunion Comic Relief short entitled One Red Nose Day and a Wedding, which aired in the UK during Red Nose Day on 15 March 2019.

On 1 May 1993, at the wedding of Angus and Laura in Somerset, the perpetually late best man Charles; his flatmate Scarlett; his aristocratic friend Fiona and her brother Tom; Gareth and his partner Matthew; and Charles's deaf brother David, all gather. All are unmarried. Charles forgets the rings and hastily borrows two from the congregation, which prove to be incongruous. At the reception, he makes a risqué speech and is attracted to Carrie, an American woman who has been working in England. They spend the night together. In the morning, Carrie, who is returning to the U. S., laments to him that they may have "missed a great opportunity". Three months later, at the London wedding of Bernard and Lydia – who met at the previous wedding – Tom is best man. Charles is excited to run into Carrie, who has returned to the U. K. He is disappointed to meet Hamish, Carrie's older, wealthy Scottish fiancé. A young woman named Serena is attracted to David. During the reception, Charles is humiliated by several ex girlfriends. These include the distraught Henrietta, called 'Duckface' by Fiona and whose brother was inadvertently insulted by Charles at the first wedding. Henrietta claims that Charles is a "serial monogamist" fearful of commitment. He retreats to an empty hotel suite, from which he sees Carrie and Hamish depart by taxi. Charles becomes temporarily trapped in the room when the newlyweds stumble in to have sex. Carrie returns to the reception; she and Charles spend a second night together. A month later, Charles receives an invitation to Carrie's wedding to Hamish. While searching for a gift on London's South Bank, he runs into her. Charles helps Carrie choose a wedding dress, after which she recounts her 33 sexual partners to him; Charles, who was number 32, awkwardly confesses he loves her, and Carrie gently rebuffs him. A month later, Charles and his friends attend Carrie and Hamish's wedding in Perthshire. The flamboyant Gareth tells the group to seek potential mates; Scarlett meets Chester, a Texan. Henrietta points out to Charles her new boyfriend. As Charles watches Carrie and Hamish dance, Fiona, aware of Charles's unhappiness, tells him that she remains single because she loves him. Charles, though sympathetic, does not reciprocate her feelings. During Hamish's speech, Gareth suffers a fatal heart attack. At Gareth's funeral, Matthew recites "Funeral Blues", a poem by W. H. Auden. Carrie and Charles share a brief moment, and Charles and Tom then ponder that, despite their clique's pride in being single, Gareth and Matthew were as a "married" couple. They wonder whether seeking for "one true love" is futile. Ten months later, Charles's own wedding day arrives; he is marrying Henrietta. While seating guests, Tom meets his distant cousin, Deirdre, whom he has not seen since childhood; they are smitten with each other. Scarlett and Chester are overjoyed to meet again. Carrie arrives and tells Charles that she and Hamish have separated following a difficult marriage. Charles has an emotional crisis in a backroom of the church. After David and Matthew counsel him, he decides to proceed with the wedding. When the vicar asks whether anyone present has reason why the couple should not marry, David uses sign language to say that the groom has doubts and loves someone else. Charles confirms this by saying "I do", and a furious Henrietta knocks him out at the altar, ending the ceremony. Later that day, Charles is at his flat discussing the fiasco with his friends when Carrie arrives to apologize for causing the trouble. Charles again says he loves her and proposes a lifelong commitment without marriage, which Carrie accepts. As they kiss, a thunderbolt flashes across the sky. In an ending photo montage, Henrietta has married an Army officer; David married Serena; Scarlett has married Chester, the Texan; Tom married Deirdre; Matthew has found a new male partner; Fiona is shown with Prince Charles; and Charles and Carrie have had their first child.

Screenwriter Richard Curtis's own experiences as a wedding attendee inspired Four Weddings and a Funeral. According to Curtis he began writing the script at age 34, after realising he had attended 65 weddings in an 11 year period. At one wedding he was propositioned by a fellow guest, but he turned her down and forever regretted it; accordingly he based the origin of Charles and Carrie's romance on that situation. Curtis chose to omit any mention of the characters' careers, because he didn't think a group of friends would realistically discuss their jobs while together at a wedding. Jennings would eventually go on to play a supporting role in Mindy Kaling's 2019 television miniseries adaptation of the film. The team continued holding auditions for over a year, seeing roughly 70 actors for the role of Charles before Hugh Grant. Grant was ready to give up acting as a career when he received the script for Four Weddings and a Funeral; he stated in 2016 that: "I wasn't really getting any work at all, and then to my great surprise this script came through the letterbox from my agent, and it was really good. And I rang on and said there must be a mistake, you've sent me a good script." Initially, writer Richard Curtis, who had modelled the character of Charles after himself, was opposed to casting Grant in the role, because he thought Grant was too handsome. Curtis favoured casting Alan Rickman, but Rickman refused to audition. Curtis was eventually persuaded by Newell and the producers to approve Grant's casting. Jeanne Tripplehorn was originally cast as Carrie, but she had to drop out before filming when her mother died. The role was offered to Marisa Tomei, but she turned it down, because her grandfather was sick at the time. Sarah Jessica Parker was also reportedly considered. Andie MacDowell was in London doing publicity for Groundhog Day when she read the script and was subsequently cast. Grant's participation hit another stumbling block when his agent requested a £5,000 rise over the £35,000 salary Grant was offered. The producers initially refused because of the extremely tight budget, but eventually agreed. The supporting cast members were paid £17,500 apiece.

Duncan Kenworthy produced the film while on sabbatical from Jim Henson Productions. Grant was encouraged by director Mike Newell to mess up and trip over his lines, written in "convoluted syntax" as Grant describes them, in order to give Charles a stammering, nervous quality. Exterior shots of guests arriving for the funeral were filmed in Thurrock, Essex overlooking the River Thames with the backdrop of the Dartford River Crossing. Stately homes in Bedfordshire (Luton Hoo for wedding two's reception) and Hampshire provided exteriors for weddings.

According to Hugh Grant, the initial screening of a rough cut of Four Weddings went very badly. blockquote| "I thought we'd screwed it up. When we went to watch a rough cut, all of us, me, Richard Curtis, Mike Newell, the producers, all thought this was the worst film that's ever been perpetrated. We're gonna go and emigrate to Peru when it comes out so no one can actually find us. And then they had a, a few cuts later they took it to Santa Monica for a test screening and everyone loved it. And it was a great surprise." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 81 out of 100 based on 19 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four, calling it "delightful and sly", and directed with "light hearted enchantment" by Newell. He praised Grant's performance, describing it as a kind of "endearing awkwardness". Todd McCarthy of Variety called it a "truly beguiling romantic comedy" which was "frequently hilarious without being sappily sentimental or tiresomely retrograde." Producer Duncan Kenworthy later attributed much of the success of Four Weddings at the box office to McCarthy's review. Time magazine writer Richard Corliss was less scathing, but agreed that it was forgettable, saying that people would "forget all about [the movie] by the time they leave the multiplex," even joking at the end of his review that he had forgotten the film's name.

It was reported in November 2017 that the streaming service Hulu was developing an eponymous anthology television series based upon the film, to be written and executive produced by Mindy Kaling and Matt Warburton, with Richard Curtis also serving as an executive producer. In October 2018, it was announced Jessica Williams, Nikesh Patel, Rebecca Rittenhouse, and John Reynolds had joined the cast. The miniseries premiered on 31 July 2019.

On 5 December 2018, it was announced that Richard Curtis had written One Red Nose Day and a Wedding, a 25th anniversary Comic Relief television reunion short film. The original film's director, Mike Newell, returned, along with the film's surviving cast, including Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, John Hannah, Rowan Atkinson, James Fleet, David Haig, Sophie Thompson, David Bower, Robin McCaffrey, Anna Chancellor, Rupert Vansittart, Simon Kunz, Sara Crowe and Timothy Walker. It centered on the reunion of all the characters from the original film at the wedding of Charles and Carrie's daughter to Fiona's daughter. The involvement of additional cast members Lily James and Alicia Vikander, who played the young lesbians getting married, was not announced until the day the film aired in the UK. The film aired in the US on their Red Nose Day on 23 May 2019.