FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL
Directed by: Mike Newell.
Written by: Richard Curtis.
Produced by: Duncan Kenworthy.
Director of Photography: Michael Coulter.
Edited by: Jon Gregory.
Music by: Richard Rodney Bennett.
Released by: MGM Home Video. Country of Origin: UK. 118 min. Rated: R. With: Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas, Simon Callow, Rowan Atkinson, James Fleet, John Hannah, Charlotte Coleman, David Bower & Corin Redgrave. DVD Features: Commentary by Mike Newell, Richard Curtis & Duncan Kenworthy. Deleted scenes. New featurettes “The Wedding Planners,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral: In the Making” & “Two Actors and a Director.” Audio & subtitles in English, French, & Spanish.

Seminal is not a word that should be tossed about like a soccer ball. But if you could pin down the exact moment when British romantic comedies hit their stride, it would be in 1994, when this seminal “little movie that could” became the most profitable film of its time.

A film about the momentary intimacy of strangers at formal social events may not seem so significant, but this confection began the transition from the 1980’s British Zeitgeist of Merchant Ivory flicks to the sparkling middle-class comedies of today. Infusing cynical English comedy with romance, this successful international formula brought in nearly 250 million dollars and bred an endless series of similar hits like Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary, and Love Actually. And most importantly, it gave us both Hugh Grant and The Hugh Grant Character, a sort of British layman’s stuttering Woody Allen.

For curious fans, both the commentary and the main featurette, “The Wedding Planners,” boast scores of tidbits about the film’s creation on a shoestring budget, including an admission from writer Richard Curtis that it was Helen Fielding (author of the novel Bridget Jones’s Diary) who suggested a funeral to break up the weddings, saying, “It needs some death.” But the gossipy insight into Hugh Grant, Simon Callow, and character actress Charlotte Coleman steals the show from any discussion of the filmmaking itself.

What makes this “deluxe edition” somewhat disappointing is the tendency of the bonus features to repeat themselves. The same anecdotes are touched upon by the same people in each of the behind-the-scenes extras. One of the documentaries, “Two Actors and a Director,” is actually footage lifted from the “Wedding Planners” interviews, edited and refocused into a pithy segment that lasts all of five minutes long. It’s a charming edition, but this is not a deluxe set as much as a reissue that has all the usual extras the original DVD released in 1999 should have included. Zachary Jones
February 7, 2006