So here’s the plot of Four Weddings and a Funeral as I imagine it. Hugh Grant, playing a home counties type called Archie who has replanted himself in the buzzing metropolis of London and is a lawyer or a banker or a lawyer for a bank, goes to the wedding of an old Oxbridge pal. He’s smiling, trying awfully hard to be polite, but he’s bored and notices a woman joking during the service. After nipping off for a piss during the reception he catches a glimpse of his zip. Archie’s flying low! As he backs in behind a tub of begonias to correct himself, Archie walks straight into the bouquet throwing and breaks run of the mouthy woman as she dashes to grab it. She collapses in a heap on the floor and, oh my god, she’s a Yank!
Wedding two. It’s a year later and freewheeling Archie is getting pressure from his parents to settle down. He’s made to attend another wedding, this time of a woman distantly related to the aristocracy. Mother Archie suggests the bride’s sister might be suitable marriage fodder. She’s attractive enough, if a bit dull. Eccentric Father Archie says his son will find love in his own time, just like Nigel Mansell had to wait for his second spell at Williams before winning his first world title. Archie stares off into the distance as if remembering something pleasant. Half way through the ceremony Archie nips out for a piss behind an oak tree and gazes out over the picturesque Cotswolds village when, lo and behold, he spots the boisterous Yank of the previous year, about to drive off in a red VW Beetle. Grant hastily contrives an encounter and, despite being stuck in a hedge at the time, his charm is sufficient to get Cindy’s number. The pair agree to meet for pints in the capital. A montage of west London fun time follows.
Come wedding three, it’s Cindy’s pal who’s getting married and Archie is there on the American’s arm. But from a brief scene in the pews before the ceremony – oh, look, it’s the bumbling priest again – you can tell things aren’t going well. Archie’s distracted ways are annoying Cindy, who’s a bit less carefree than Archie thought. After nipping out for a piss, Archie stumbles – possibly accidentally – into a clinch with the maid of honour over the baptism font. It happens just as Rev Rowan is reaching the peroration of his homily. The gasps are audible.
A significant period of time later and it’s raining over a graveyard. Archie’s eccentric father has passed away after crashing his racing-green Caterham into a farm shop. As Archie’s mother shifts around the church hall hyperactively handing out vol-au-vents, Archie stands alone by the streaked window, his youthful looks now creased with care. Having earlier nipped out for a piss, his flies are once again undone. Archie is frustrated and he curses, but as he pulls at the zip he realises is wearing the same suit as wedding number two. He feels at his breast pocket and there it is: a scrap of paper with Cindy’s phone number on it (the dot on the I is a heart).
Then comes a scene which is a bit like the one in Love Actually, which I have seen. In fact, I have watched that other Richard Curtis film any number of times, usually in a semi-stupor during the Christmas perineum. I see it as something close to a high Blairite text, a world where race and gender doesn’t matter and everyone is middle class apart from one family; but they still have access to good public services and could fall in love with the prime minister, so why worry? I find it really moving in a disconcerting way. Anyway, I boycotted Four Weddings at the time because I was boiling in my own testosterone and considered it to be propaganda, part of an establishment attempt to reduce the complexities of our nation to some kind of bumbling Tory goofing. Thank goodness I was wrong about that.
Anyway, that scene happens but unlike in Love Actually, it works. The American is strong enough and kind enough to give a penitent Archie a second chance. Archie is as good as his word and even turns down the advances of the maid of honour at his stag do (you never know who you’ll meet at a Chelsea wine bar). Wedding four is the couple’s own, of course, and it’s back to the Cotswolds with Rev Rowan and a recurring precocious bridesmaid and Wet Wet Wet done up as a choir. When the Rev asks if Archie will take this woman for richer and poorer ’til death do us part, there’s a knowing, wobbling smile. But his “I do” is unequivocal in its certainty.
