Four Weddings and a Funeral: Deluxe Edition DVD Review:

In 1994 Four Weddings and a Funeral took audiences by surprise, and by the end of award season it had garnered four British Academy Awards and received an Oscar nomination for best picture. Suddenly Hugh Grant was an international star and Four Wedding and a Funeral was the most popular romantic comedy to come out in years. Nearly twelve years later it is still a great film, and now available in a Deluxe Edition which is filled with a number of great special features and new packaging. Releasing new editions of old films seems to be one of the latest crazes for studios, but it is definitely worth the purchase if you don’t already own a copy of the film.

Four Weddings and a Funeral comes from the fantastic idea that there are certain people that you run into at weddings. When everyone seems to be getting married you have a much better chance of running into the same people at different weddings. Following the relationship of Charles and Carrie as it develops at each wedding and the one funeral, the film manages to show every time two people meet. Carrie is an American who has friends in England and travels to the weddings. Charles has a group of friends that are all at the age where they are getting married, and so he happens to see Carrie at these functions and they hit it off.

It was a brilliant idea for a film, and it is filled with great memorable characters as well. This was the role that put Hugh Grant on the map, and he came incredibly close to not getting it because he was too attractive looking. Fortunately the filmmakers decided to go with him, and Grant was able to give his most memorable performance to date.

The Deluxe Edition DVD of the film was long overdue and is filled with everything I could have hoped for. The menus are somewhat cheesy, making the lighthearted film seem somewhat airy, as the new cover art manages to do as well. The cover art is of all of the main characters, but there is also a plastic slip cover, which gives the package a more important feel.

There are a number of great special features, but the one I was most excited about was the commentary track by the filmmakers, including Mike Newell. There are also five deleted scenes, with optional commentary by Producer Duncan Kenworthy. The footage in the deleted scenes is rather rough, but there are some interesting scenes which would have changed the story entirely. Other special features include a behind the scenes photo gallery, promotional spots, and a theatrical trailer, but the best features are the two featurettes and the documentary.

The first featurette is “Four Weddings and a Funeral: In the Making,” which is basically just a making of featurette, with the usual stops. There are on-set interviews and behind the scenes footage, but it is only about eight minutes long. The second featurette is “Two Actors and a Director,” which is about the casting of the two lead roles, and the director. This featurette has more recent interviews with the cast and crew, and is only about five minutes long. The documentary, “The Wedding Planners,” has many of the same interviews as the featurette, but it spends the time to go more in depth. It follows the whole process that the film took. Mike Newell talks about the process of working through Hollywood. This “documentary” is actually just about thirty minutes long, so it is actually more like a featurette, but it is very well done.



Ryan Izay