Books, Arts & Manners: Opera Posthuma

THE GOOD old Eeling comedies look better than ever in retrospect, as we search in vain for the likes of Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Stanley Holloway, Joan Greenwood, Joyce Grenfell, Glynis Johns, and all the rest. Only Joan Plowright today captures that spirit, but, of course, those movies are no longer being made, which is why British actors such as Gary Oldman and Tim Roth have to learn to make like Americans and appear in our unlikely clinkers in even unlikelier roles.

So I went with, so to speak, great expectations to Four Weddings and a Funeral, “filmed entirely on location in London and the home counties,” with only one American in it, and playing, safely, an American. The mere word “wedding” in the title brought back memories of A Quiet Wedding, with the still undervalued Margaret Lockwood and a dream supporting cast. Let me tell you right off that Four Weddings is not in that league, and not even throwing in that one funeral by way of tragic relief adds much dimension to it.

JS

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John Simon

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THE GOOD old Eeling comedies look better than ever in retrospect, as we search in vain for the likes of Alec Guinness, Dennis Price, Stanley Holloway, Joan Greenwood, Joyce Grenfell, Glynis Johns, and all the rest. Only Joan Plowright today captures that spirit, but, of course, those movies are no longer being made, which is why British actors such as Gary Oldman and Tim Roth have to learn to make like Americans and appear in our unlikely clinkers in even unlikelier roles.

So I went with, so to speak, great expectations to Four Weddings and a Funeral, “filmed entirely on location in London and the home counties,” with only one American in it, and playing, safely, an American. The mere word “wedding” in the title brought back memories of A Quiet Wedding, with the still undervalued Margaret Lockwood and a dream supporting cast. Let me tell you right off that Four Weddings is not in that league, and not even throwing in that one funeral by way of tragic relief adds much dimension to it.