TV Review - Four Weddings and a Funeral (2019)

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) was one of the top ten, highest grossing films the year of its release in terms of world-wide totals. It didn't make as much domestically in the United States as Forrest Gump (1994), which was the top film of that year. It wouldn't do nearly as well as Hugh Grant's later romantic comedies, but it did establish him in that genre. It was nominated for several prestigious awards, including two Academy Awards, that of Best Writing and Best Picture. There are several films I would have put in its place and to this day, I don't think the film is that amazing, but since its release it has been held up as an iconic rom-com. Given Mindy Kaling's love of romantic comedies, it makes sense that she along with Matt Warburton (The Simpsons) would remake the 1994 flick.

The series takes the basic premise from the film, which is a group of friends who gather for a wedding in London. The friends include a British guy who is the Best Man and an American woman who is just a guest. The two meet and fall in love. They have a one-night-stand but because they're from two different countries, they aren't able to begin a relationship or they simply part ways. The two run into each other again at another mutual friend's wedding. The man is still in love but the woman now has a fiancé. Yet, the attraction between the two is still strong. The film becomes a waiting game for how long it will take and how many other partners they'll have before the two wind up together.

Despite screenwriter Richard Curtis' Oscar nomination, I didn't appreciate how the film was written. It had a clever structure. The film was built around this idea that we only or mainly see the characters interacting at one of the five titular events. We don't really get anything about the characters outside of those events. While it kept things in the film somewhat lively, it limited the audience from seeing any of the relationships build and grow over time, which is what I feel is vital to telling a love story in a rom-com or in any story. I need to see the characters getting to know each other and bonding with each other over time. Otherwise, it doesn't feel solid or real. That was my criticism of the film.

Kaling and Warburton's series addresses that problem. While this series takes the title and the premise of the film with some alterations, it doesn't take the structure. I wondered if the series would do so and would perhaps be five episodes long where each episode is centered around one of the titular events for the characters. Yet, there are actually ten episodes in this series, so that structure isn't the case. Instead, Kaling and Warburton draw out the events and give us more time with the characters to see them bond and fall in love.

All of this would be great, but, Kaling and Warburton's characters are so annoying or uninteresting that it makes me not want to follow them on whatever paths they find themselves traveling. They also pile on so much drama that instead of enticing me or pulling me into the story, I rather rolled my eyes at the preposterousness of it all. A lot of that preposterous stuff is very much akin to Kaling's previous TV series The Mindy Project (2012). Unfortunately, the tone of this series isn't quite the same as The Mindy Project. Therefore, this series can't handle all the preposterous stuff that Kaling tries to pile on here.

Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones and Hollyoaks) stars as Maya Jones, the communications director for an American politician running for the Senate. That Senator is married, but that doesn't stop Maya from having an affair with him. When she leaves the USA for the UK, it is with the hope that the potential Senator will eventually be with her. Her friends know about this affair and try to dissuade her from continuing the relationship.

Nikesh Patel co-stars as Kashif Khan aka Kash, an investment banker who actually wants to be an actor and who is still into comic books. He's of Pakistani descent, but he's engaged to be married to a white woman named Ainsley. The day before the wedding, he makes a connection with another woman who makes him start to question or doubt his desire to get married to Ainsley. This eventually causes him to leave Ainsley at the altar, embarrassing himself and his fiancé. The woman with whom he connects turns out to be Maya.

The connection between Maya and Kash is reciprocal. When Maya connects with Kash, it's before she knows that he's engaged to her best friend, Ainsley. The majority of the series is Maya and Kash hiding this fact from Ainsley. It's typical for rom-coms to be based on a secret or lie that is held until its eventual reveal by the end. It's a cliché in romantic comedies, but the original Four Weddings and a Funeral circumvents that cliché. This series leans into it, thus creating unnecessary drama or drama that is ultimately distracting and frustrating.

Maya is meant to be the equivalent to Andie MacDowell's character in the original Four Weddings and a Funeral. Kash is meant to be the equivalent to Hugh Grant's character in the original film. Maya and Kash are meant to be as endearing as the original pair. They're meant to be as empathetic. Yet, the secret they hide undercuts that. Maya's relationship with the Senator and Kash's identity crisis undercut them as endearing characters as well. It feels like stuff piled onto them simply to have stuff piled onto them. The secret just feels like a delaying tactic than anything else.

If one has watched The Mindy Project, then Maya and Kash aren't just the equivalents to the couple in the 1994 film. They're also the equivalents to the main couple in The Mindy Project itself. Maya feels like the character played by Mindy Kaling herself. Kash at times feels like the character played by Chris Messina. Unfortunately, Emmanuel and Patel aren't as good comedically as Kaling or Messina to handle or even bolster the material.

There is a supporting cast who didn't capture my attention. A complaint though about the film is the short-shrift toward the gay couple. This series rectifies that and provides space for the same-sex romance. Getting to that more interesting romance means wading through a lot of drudgery though.



Rated TV-MA.
Running Time: 1 hr. / 10 eps.

Available on Hulu.