Four Weddings and a Funeral with Kate Cheka

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the cast. The questions asked if movies have women
and them all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or
do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and Beast
start changing it with the Bechdel cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Do do do do Do?

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Do do do do?

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Oh no, I'm gay and I've had a heart attack.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh no, And then oh and then there's a funeral.
What's the funeral music?

Speaker 4 (00:30):
Oh god, I don't know if there's a go to funeral.

Speaker 5 (00:33):
I guess there isn't. I was going to say do
do do do do do do, but I don't think
people like people don't really do that.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, that kind of reminded me of the Darth Vader March,
like the Imperial March.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Yeah, that felt like, yeah, maybe if someone shitty died,
I want that to play at my funeral. Something I
like about funerals now, something I appreciate about the contemporary
a funeral is that a lot of people just plug
their phone in. That's what we did at my dad's funeral.

(01:06):
We made like a communal playlist of music he liked.
I plugged it in.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Okay, I was like, what do you mean?

Speaker 4 (01:12):
I mean, it's just like, you just play the music
that the person liked. It makes way more sense than
like crying music. You know, yeah, play the sex pistols
have some fun totally. Anyways, I don't they play more
generic music at ED. I think, you know, probably in
the interest of budget. They're playing kind of in the movie.
You mean, hey, yes, they're playing low budget, royalty free music.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Exactly, because the movie is four Weddings in a Funeral.
The podcast is the Bechdel Cast. Totally Caitlin Durante, who
are you, Jamie?

Speaker 4 (01:51):
I truly am like having a like delayed brain. Here's
what happened. I had a Celsius at six am, and
then I started to crash at like nine thirty, and
I was like, I have to I have to maintain
my buzz. So I just got a gigantic coffee. I'm
Jamie Loftus and this is the Bexel Cast. The movie
where we take a look at your favorite the podcast

(02:14):
where we take the oh no, the podcast where we
take a look at your favorite movie is using from
an intersectional feminist, using the Bexel test as a jumping
off point for discussion. All of those words felt.

Speaker 5 (02:29):
New in my mouth, like I never said, are you okay?
Something is going on.

Speaker 4 (02:36):
It's gonna be one podcast and one funeral.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
Caitleb. What's the Bechtyl test? What the hell is it?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I'll tell I'll tell you. It is a media metric
created by close friend of the show, Alison Bechdel, first
appearing in her comic collection Dicks to Watch out For
in the eighties, has since been kind of adapted to
a more like mainstream media metric that has many different
versions of it. The one that we use is this,

(03:09):
do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do
they speak to each other? And is there conversation about
something other than a man? And then we particularly like
it when it's a narratively relevant, meaningful conversation and not
dialogue that could be cut out of the movie and
nothing would really change, right, And we're and we'll apply

(03:31):
it to four weddings in a funeral today. Did I
pay attention if it passes the Bechdel Test or not?

Speaker 4 (03:38):
No?

Speaker 2 (03:38):
I didn't.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Why would you say that at the beginning of the episode.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, look, this is a chaos episode. I can feel it.
We're just we're loose.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
I actually I was just googling if it passed, and
the phrase I googled was Bechtel test, four sisters and
a wedding. I'm not sure what's going on today? Okay, amazing, Okay, okay,
nothing is working. Let's just let's bring our guests in here.

Speaker 5 (04:08):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Maybe maybe she'll help stabilize us. Maybe it'll be even
more chaotic.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
See, she's living in the night time, we're living in
the day.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
So true because she comes to us from across a sea.
She is a comedian. You can check out her show
The Last Funny Woman at Edinburgh Fringe this year in August.
And you remember her from our episode on angus, thongs
and perfect snogging. It's Kate Cheka.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Speaker 5 (04:42):
Welcome back.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Oh gosh, thank you.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
I'm so happy to be back.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
We're delighted to have you. So you've brought us four
weddings in a funeral?

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Tell us I did? I was excuse me of bringing it?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well you did? Yeah, Well I do feel that wayship.
What's your relationship with this movie?

Speaker 3 (05:06):
My relationship with it? It was one of those ones
I saw as a child. I guess Richard Curtis is
like one of those British things, and so are Richard Curtis.
Movie is one of his British things. And you've seen
it as a child, and you've been raised with it,
and it just feels like a part of your culture.
I think is the thing. And I've had issues with

(05:31):
other ones of his films, like Love Actually, which I'm
sure you've done right, one.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Of our very Yeah, I think we're due for a
real look maybe this holiday season. We didn't, but also
we didn't. We didn't care for it the first. Richard
Curtis has not fair age particularly well on our show.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
No, he doesn't age well usually. And I and Love Actually,
I thought Love Actually was one of my favorite films.
I was under the impression. And then on the weekend
before Christmas last Christmas, I woke up in this beautiful
two bedroom flat in North London, Islington with this man there.
He's not that important, but I was. It was a

(06:10):
hook up. But then I ended up staying the weekend
in his beautiful flat because he had such a great flight.
He had like a claw foot bath and a fireplace,
and he kept saying things that I enjoyed, like there's
bubbly wine in the fridge. Left over from the Christmas party.
Do you want me to get it? I was like yes,
and like, do you want quack emole? And I was like, yeah, great,
I love it this house. And so I stayed there

(06:32):
at the house, not for him but for the beautiful house.
And we watched Love Actually and ate homemade Quackamoley.

Speaker 5 (06:38):
That does sound nice, right.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
I was like, Wow, it's a Christmas romance. And then yeah,
I watched this film and I was like, this film
is awful. Did everyone know this because I hadn't seen it?

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Okay, so long we were so we didn't.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
We didn't know which this was gonna go.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
We honestly didn't know.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
It was like, this film's horrible, Like it's a treatment
of women of people of color. I was like, this
is a bad film and it's so odd because I
was under the impression it was one of my favorite films.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
But no, I think a lot of us have had
that journey with many such cases. But how do you
feel about for weddings in a funeral?

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Now, I'd watched it quite recently and I didn't feel
the same visceral. This is bad. But if we're going
to look at it through a feminist intersexual lens. I
don't think it does very good, but I awso. But
there's somehow with this film, and I don't know why,

(07:38):
I'm more nostalgic.

Speaker 5 (07:40):
Towards it interesting.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Sure, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Do you think maybe because it's just a bit older,
like it was with you for a longer time, an
earlier age.

Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah. I think there's something about the two thousand line,
the year two thousand, where there's like, you can forgive
things that happened in the twentieth century. It was a
different you forgive them if they happened in the twenty
it was a different century.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Right.

Speaker 3 (08:05):
Where is the twenty first century despite the handful of
years between these films, is a different century and by
the two thousands, we needed.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
To know a different millennium.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, So I guess maybe it's that.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Yeah, Yeah, I do.

Speaker 4 (08:20):
I felt like there's a version of Hugh Grant's face.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
Hugh Grant in.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
His thirties is like a completely different vibe to contemporary
hugrit They're all great, but I feel like, yes, Hugh Grant,
for me, age is like a fine wine. You know,
we have to get through four weddings and a funeral
to get to Paddington.

Speaker 5 (08:38):
Too kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
Tell me about it performance, as Caitlin I said it before,
a generational performance. But there's also I don't know, I'm curious, Kitlyn,
what's your history with this movie?

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Well? I saw it for the first time in the
Great Caitlin Movie Binge of two thousand and five. I
did not care for it at the time. I watched
it again twice for a podcast that I guessed it
on in twenty twenty one called five hundred Greatest Films
podcast hosted by my buds Hector and Keller. Oh yes,

(09:18):
I find on that as well.

Speaker 5 (09:19):
I forget what movie I covered.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
Who can say, but I really waxed poetic on that
episode about how much I deeply hate this movie. Wow.

Speaker 4 (09:32):
You disliking this movie went back so far.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, I have a long history of really loathing.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
And I thought maybe, I was like, look, it's been
five years since then, maybe I'll find something appealing about it.
And there are little nuggets of things that I don't hate,
and we'll talk about them. But by and large, this
movie so much. So sorry, in advance to all of
our listeners love this movie. I am going to be

(10:04):
taking a massive dump on.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
It, you know, and normally when Caitlin is taking a
massive dump, I tend to fall somewhere. I tend to
fall somewhere in the middle.

Speaker 5 (10:18):
However, I will be.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
Joining you today and jump, I really like, for reasons
that have to do with our podcasts and reasons that don't.
The barrier gaze in Four Weddings and a Funeral is
so egregious and pisses me right off.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
Right from the jump.

Speaker 4 (10:34):
I was like, if I literally wrote out at the beginning,
if one of our only identifiably queer characters is.

Speaker 5 (10:40):
The funeral, I'm gonna blow my house up.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
And I think so it.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
Was, and so it was.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
But yeah, I think, honestly, for me, i'd never seen
this movie before. I mix it up with another movie,
I forget what it is. And I know that there
was a remake of this movie that Kate.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Mindy Kahaling did a series in twenty nineteen.

Speaker 4 (11:04):
I think, Okay, I did not watch that either, But yeah,
I had never seen it before, and I honestly like,
I just thought it was boring. Honestly, that was I
think the movie's worst crime for me is I was
bored and I did like the only characters.

Speaker 5 (11:21):
I the only character I like died, so you know.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
So I would say I did not like it.

Speaker 4 (11:28):
And also even given the period, because I can Kate,
I totally agree, Like there are certain comedies and rom
coms that you're like, you know, it's it's worth the
monkey paw situation that you put yourself into by watching it.
But for and this movie for me on every level,
there are better Hugh Grant movies in the nineties to watch.
There are better Richard Curtis movies in the nineties to watch,

(11:51):
like it just I can't do it. I still haven't
seen Nodding Hill. But of the other Richard Curtis movies
we've covered on the pod, I think my favorite is
MoMA me I Here We Go Again, which she is
a credited writer on, so there's.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
A story by credit. I think. Yeah. His his filmography
is wild because.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
I randomly Warhorse, he wrote war Horse that and then
Bizarre Notting Hill Love actually Bridgie Jones Diary and Bridgide
Jones too. He is also deep into Rowan Atkinson. Oh
he is Mester, He's mister well, he's well, he's not
mister Yeah, he's mister mister Bean.

Speaker 5 (12:35):
We got there.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yes, also Rowan Atkinson.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
Oh my god, every time I see Ron Atkinson, I
think of the James A. Caster Special, my favorite story
ever about how James Acaster's fiance dumped him for mister
Bean and then married mister Bean and had mister Bean's baby.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
Like, every time something bad happens to me, I'm like, damn,
at least at least.

Speaker 5 (12:58):
I didn't leave me for mister Bean.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
That would be really bad. There's still time.

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I love the idea of that day day Caster is
a gateway for mister Bean.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
And I'm sure that, like, given his like exact age,
he probably loved mister Bean too.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
That had to be like devastating.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
On many levels for traumatizing thoughts.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
In prayers Podcaster He's fine, He's fine.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, Yeah, he's doing just great. So so yeah. Richard
Curtis directed by Mike Newell, who I think has mostly
done a lot of British things that I am not
familiar with. And then he directed one Harry Potter movie.

Speaker 4 (13:39):
He killed Robert Pattinson, that's to me.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah, he won.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
That's the only thing I remember from that particular Harry
Potter movie is that Harry Potter has long hair and
Robert Pattinson dies. I think that's all that happens. I'm
sure who cares?

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, who fucking cares? When it was written by history's greatest,
the transphob piece of shit.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Put all in the trash.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
Shall we take a break and then come back for
the recap.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
And we're back.

Speaker 4 (14:22):
Let's check in, Kate, Are you mad at us?

Speaker 3 (14:25):
I'm know, I'm just like, I'm interested, open minded here.
Maybe it's a cultural thing, and I can argue very
well could be, but this is just so very British.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
I wonder that the whole time, where I'm like, am
I just too American to enjoy this movie?

Speaker 3 (14:43):
That's what I'm wondering.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
Well for me, Like I love a lot of British humor.
I love The Full Monty is one of my favorite movies.
I love like Simon Pegg penned films, Monty, Python, Yeah,
et cetera. Yeah, I love all of these things.

Speaker 3 (15:03):
Like I am cultured. I know about Britain.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
I exactly.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
I know that Kitlyn's about to say staph while it's flats.
I know you're about to drop it.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
That's flat. Is the best show ever made? Yeah? So
I enjoy a lot of British humor. It's just that
this movie to me isn't funny.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
Sorry, sorry, so funny. Why do I think it's so funny?

Speaker 4 (15:30):
I think it's it's like a whistle that we can't hear.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
I don't know what it is.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
It's yeah, I think I wanted to say because I like.
The one thing I was like thinking when I was
rewatching this was it's not good in terms of like
representation and stuff, but boy is it funny.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
I'm willing.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
I'm willing to I'm willing to be swede. Yeah, yeah,
I'm I mean, look, I've got an open mind and
an open heart.

Speaker 5 (16:03):
Yes, so it's true.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's true.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
All right.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
So let's take a look at what happens in the movie.
We meet several people as they are getting ready to
head to a wedding, one of them being Charles. This
is Hugh Grant of Paddington two fame. Charles and his
flatmate Scarlett played by Charlotte Coleman. They wake up late
and have to rush to the wedding. This will become

(16:29):
a motif where he's always late to weddings. Their other
friends are sister and brother Fiona and Tom played by
Kristin Scott Thomas and James Fleet. There is a gay
couple Gareth and Matthew played by Simon Callo and John Hannah.
Charles's brother David played by David Bauer. They all attend

(16:54):
the wedding of Angus and Laura. Also at this wedding
is a woman who catches Charles's eye. This is Carrie
played by Andy McDowell. Fiona seems to know her, and
she says that Carrie is American and a slut, but
that does not deter Charles, and he approaches her. That's

(17:17):
so brave of him. Yeah, he approaches her at the reception,
but then immediately makes a fool out of himself in
front of an acquaintance of his played by Simon Koontz,
who we all recognize as Martin the Butler in Lindsay
Lohan's My Parent Trap.

Speaker 5 (17:34):
I was cheering.

Speaker 4 (17:35):
I was cheering, cheering, cheering to see Martin the Butler.
I don't think I've ever seen him in anything else.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
It was a true I feel like he's a very
one of those actors that's in a lot of us stuff.

Speaker 4 (17:48):
Okay, Yeah, it's like watching a Mike Lee movie where
you're like these these people look familiar, but who are they?

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Okay, So Charles gives his best man speech and people
are laughing their little asses off, and Carrie seems to
think he's funny and charming. Then you know, people start dancing.
Mister Bean is there. He's a priest in training. The
night wears on, people are getting wasted. One of the bridesmaids, Lydia,

(18:23):
thought that she was gonna find a hunk at the
wedding to sleep with, like it was gonna be a
sure thing that she's a bridesmaid, so she's gonna have sex,
but she can't find anyone. And then this guy, Bernard
is like, I'll do it, and she's like, ooh, yucky.
But then later they start furiously making out and they
love it. They're the second wedding. Yes. Yes. At the

(18:48):
end of the night, Carrie, who Charles thought had left,
approaches him and asks him where he's staying that night,
and he's like, oh, I'm staying at my friend's castle,
and she's like like, oh, well, I'm staying at the Boatman,
where he was originally supposed to stay. So he blows
off his friends and goes there to try to run

(19:09):
into her again, which he does. There's a part where
he's getting cock blocked by some wind bag. Yeah, but
Carrie invites Charles up to her room and pretty soon
they're smooching and then they have sex.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Did you catch what the wind bag said as well?
I thought that was quite dark for a rom com.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
He was like stalking Carrie, being like, I have a
chance with her. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get
to fuck.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
HER's and she's actively hiding from him.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
I hide mind the sofa.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Yeah, it does feel like and we'll have a whole
conversation about how Carrie's sexuality is discussed within the movie.
But it seems like her reputation precedes her in a
way that is getting her actively harassed by everyone. And
I think if we bou chevy test sort of, well,
I guess not as much with Charles, because she does

(20:06):
approach Charles and indicate interest, which does not happen with
anyone else.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Correct. Yes, Yeah, So they have sex and then the
next morning she's like, Okay, since we slept together, we
have to get married. Just kidding, hahha, I'm quirky.

Speaker 4 (20:28):
And then he does the bajillionth It is wild. We
covered it a long time ago, but the long influential
tale of oh my gosh, fatal attraction.

Speaker 5 (20:41):
I almost said final destination. I was like, that's not right,
that's not right.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
But the amount of times that fatal attraction is like
referenced just as a shorthand for like woman who is unhinged,
it happens to this day.

Speaker 5 (20:57):
That movie.

Speaker 4 (20:58):
That movie really did a dirty one on culture.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
It really made an impression on insecure men.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
God forbid, Glenn Close, do a good job, Jesus.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Yeah. Okay. So she like makes a joke and then
she's like, okay, bye, I have to go back to America,
see ya, And she leaves and Charles is like, won't.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Won't.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
There goes my dream woman. We cut to three months later.
It is the wedding of Lydia and Bernard. Once again,
Charles and Scarlet are running late to the wedding, so
they have to sprint there. The same friend group is there, Fiona, Tom, Matthew, Gareth, David,
and then mister Bean is officiating. But it's his first

(21:47):
wedding and so he's really nervous and he does a
terrible job in a scene that is, I'm sorry, way
too long and dare I say name funny? He makes
so many.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Kooky mistakes because.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
I'm Swisszerland here there? Okay, So then at the reception,
guess who's there? It's Carrie. Even though we don't know
who she knows at any of these weddings or other events.
We don't know who she's friends with.

Speaker 4 (22:23):
Seriously, we don't know. We know the things about her
that the plot requires that we know.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
Which is that she's had sex with a bunch of people.
She's had sex with thirty two thirty three people. Thirty
three people.

Speaker 3 (22:37):
Yeah, yes, not even that many.

Speaker 5 (22:40):
I know. Well, yeah, yeah, totally not.

Speaker 3 (22:46):
To not to like make out. I'm not trying to
shame her for not having more sex. I'm just saying it.
I don't think it's that deep.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
But yeah, right, I feel like by today's standards, it's
rookie number because this is nothing. Yeah, she's basically a virgin.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
But the guest lists don't make any sense for this movie.
I will say that, like, it never makes any sense
who knows who at these weddings? Like it doesn't seem
like these people know each other, you know.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
Well, yeah, the plot just needs them all in the
same room.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well, because Charles is the best man at the first
wedding with some guy named Angus, and you would think
that because he's the best man, he and Angus are
I don't know, best friends. But then we never see
Angus again. He's not even at Charles's wedding spoiler alert.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
At the end, he's at Charles's wedding. He is, Yeah,
it's him and his wife are there and they're holding twins.

Speaker 4 (23:45):
Oh oh yeah, because every time we see them, that's like,
how we know how much time has passed?

Speaker 5 (23:48):
Is how many kids that couples?

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Yeah, because like she gets pregnant and then now she's
holding twins.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, okay, my mistake.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
And he's at the funeral. He is at the Yeah,
so Angus is back. But it is odd because it
doesn't feel like Angus is in his best mate friendship group.
So it is odd to be the best man. But
I think I know people that would choose someone who's like, oh,
it's someone I've known for a long time, rather than someone.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
That yeah I was I was gonna say, like, sometimes
the person who ends up being like having the highest
role at your wedding is like, it's more of like
a handshake deal you made when you were ten.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
Years old versus your current closest friend.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Yeah. Anyway, Carrie is at the reception, who Charles hasn't
seen or heard from since the last wedding, and he's
very excited to see her. But then she introduces him
to her fiance, Hamish, some pompous old politician, and Charles

(24:51):
is like, oh bollocks, oh bugger, oh twat, And the
rest of the evening Charles Carles is depressed and he's
running into all of his ex girlfriends. We learned that
he has said horrible things about all of them, including
something that was very fat phobic. And then he runs

(25:11):
into another ex Henrietta, who is acting quote unquote hysterical,
and she's crying about how it didn't work out with
Charles and he was so noncommittal and it broke her
heart and stuff like that. Meanwhile, Fiona confides in a
random wedding guest that she's in love with someone, but

(25:35):
we don't know who. And we'll put a pin in
that and come back. There's a woman who approaches David.
We have learned that he is deaf and he uses
British sign language. Turns out she has been learning sign
language so that they can communicate, and so they're signing together.
And then there's another long scene where the bride and

(25:59):
grew come into a room that they didn't realize Charles
is in and they start having very ridiculous sex and
he has to like try to sneak out. At the
end of the night, Charles bumps into Carrie again. Her
fiance has left for the evening, so Carrie invites Charles

(26:19):
over for a nightcap. We cut to the next morning.
They're in bed cuddling. They've had sex the night before,
and he leaves clearly lamenting that they can't be together.
We cut to a month later. Charles receives an invitation
for Carrie's wedding, and then he bumps into her at

(26:41):
a shop where I think it's like her registry store,
like wedding registry store, and everything is like thousands of pounds.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Yeah, it seems like it's a lot of like the
kind of thing you see at a museum and say
this was unethically stolen. Yeah, that's the at her British museum.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
She registered at the British Museum for the stuff that.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Big colonial vibes at the wedding registry, for sure.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
So they run into each other and Carrie invites him
to go wedding dress shopping with her. There's a dress
trying on montage that I think is supposed to endear
the audience to Carrie, but it did not work for me.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
I also was like, what kind of I was curious,
and well, we'll talk about it, but like Carrie is,
because we're kept kind of at arm's length from like
Carrie's interior life, I'm.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
Like, what is she?

Speaker 4 (27:41):
What is she doing by being like, come wedding dress
shopping with me? Guy, I've had sex with twice, Like,
I don't understand who these people are to each other.
And then at the end it's like, Okay, they're each
other's true love, sure, but but yeah, her so many
of her actions were confusing to me and also possible

(28:05):
to justify only because we know so little of her
that like you're like, well, I guess maybe she's the
kind of person that does this.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
I don't know this lady. I don't know her. No.
The only things we know about her are that she
has a reputation for being a slut parentheses pejorative. We know.

Speaker 4 (28:25):
I don't think the movie sees her as being a
slut pejorative, though I think the movie sees hears being
a slut positive.

Speaker 5 (28:32):
They just forgot to write a character.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
We know that she has cheated on her fiance with
Charles Yes, and has like a really wishy washy code
of ethics about it. She's like, well, once I'm married,
I won't cheat, but only because I told my the
love of my life, that I'd kill him if he
cheats on me. So I guess I should not be
a hypocrite.

Speaker 5 (28:55):
I don't know. I kind of I didn't hate that.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
I thought I like this woman.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
I was like, all right, she's you know, she's flawed,
but I'm listening.

Speaker 5 (29:04):
I didn't.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
I mean, honestly, most of how her sexuality was presented
within the character and by her, I was kind of
into and felt, I mean, especially for nineteen ninety four,
kind of like I thought that the movie was going
to pass far more judgment on her than it does.
It's one of the only things I enjoyed about this movie.

(29:25):
But it's also so frustrating because it's attached to this
character who other like other than that element of like
she has sex for pleasure and isn't judged by the
movie or the romantic lead for that we'd know that
she I think that they're like, oh, we sort of
find out what her job is. I think she's in
like fashion journalism, very sort of vague rom comedy kind

(29:48):
of job. But even that we're only told so that
we're told that so she has sex with a lot
of fancy guys. Like the only reason we know what
her job is is so that we understand that she
has a lot of sex. Everything goes back to that
with this character for the most part, so you.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Know, including what's about to happen, which is that after
the wedding dress trying on montage, they grab a coffee
and they're chatting and she goes through her list of
everyone she's had sex with. It's again thirty three people,
though she says number thirty two was lovely, and guess

(30:30):
who's number thirty two. It's Charles, so he's like awe,
But also.

Speaker 4 (30:37):
Lovely is like, honestly, lovely is a little vague for me.
If someone's citing me and their sexual history and they
say lovely, I'm like Okay, what do you mean that's
not that's I mean, that's nice for something casual, But
if if this is the love of my life, I'm like,
I you would hope for better than lovely, right, you

(30:59):
know drug.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
I think she's saying it like that because she knows
it's about him. She's like, I enjoyed her sex list.
She sort of gave descriptions, but only for some people.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Yeah, sometimes she's like eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, was seeing
fun or whatever.

Speaker 3 (31:19):
Yeah, and then we revealed that two of them were
together at the same time, she had threesome. I like
that for her.

Speaker 4 (31:29):
That scene is interesting because it's very much like a
tip it. For me, it was like a tipping point
in the movie of like, oh, the way that this
scene plays out will very much affect my opinion. And
it felt I'm curious what you'veould think.

Speaker 5 (31:44):
It felt like Charles.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
And it's hard not just to say Hugh Grant because
that is sort of the part here, to be honest,
but like Charles, it looks like for a moment is
deciding whether he's going to judge her and then sort
of decides not to. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but that
was sort of how I read because we have these
like long takes of like him taking this in and

(32:09):
like kind of squinting when the list keeps going, but
then he kind of comes back and is cool with it,
and then it sort of doesn't come up again, at
least between the two of them, and I don't know,
like I didn't hate it for nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 2 (32:25):
I was impressed.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
I felt like the squinting was like more his own insecurity.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
Interesting. That's how I read it too, that.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
He was like, I just haven't had this much sex,
and this movie, I think is basically trying to be
like sex is cool and people that have a lot
of sex.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
Here first, sex is cool according to for what.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
That's the vibe I got, because there was so much
like shagging chat from the get go.

Speaker 5 (32:59):
Yeah it's a sex positive movie.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but I read it that way too,
where she continues on with her list and Charles is
intimidated by her number, which seems to be much higher
than his, and then it's confirmed that it is because
shortly after this he reveals that he's had sex with
nine people, so he's insecure. Yeah yeah, Okay, So the

(33:28):
conversation happens, and then he has to leave to meet
up with his brother David. But then he's like, you
know what, fuck it, and he turns around and runs
after Carrie and then like blatheringly tells her that he
thinks he's in love with her, and she's basically like, oh,
that's cute, okay, best of luck with everything. Then we

(33:53):
cut to Carrie in Hamish's wedding in Scotland. Charles is
of course late to the wedding. He comes in right
as they're saying, there I dos, and he's like, damn
bugger bollocks, et cetera.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
At the reception, Charles runs into his ex Henrietta again,
and this time she seems more stable and she has
a new boyfriend, and.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
She basically hints at having an eating disorder. It's all
very nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, I wrote, because she says, I weigh almost nothing
and I have a new boyfriend. I'm so happy, And
it's like, right, the two things that would make a
woman happen.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
I mean, and at almost every phase of like every
decade of media has a different way of presenting disordered eating,
Like we have simply not moved past it, but This
is a very nineties way of you. It almost reminds
me of like Monica on Friends, where there is a

(34:59):
reference to a character who is now very thin used
to be fat, but you never actually see a fat person.

Speaker 5 (35:07):
You see a former fat person bullied.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
And also she's wearing a fat suit.

Speaker 4 (35:13):
If you see her, it's a thin actor in a
fat suit. Right, So that was a very I mean
not to say that that stopped after the nineties, but
it just feels like a very nineties way to even
reference fatness as a pejorative. It's not even present, it
is past tense.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Right, Yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, So Charles runs into
Henrietta again. She seems more stable than last time, and
I think this is to establish that maybe she is
romantically viable for Charles question Mark, to potentially foreshadow something

(35:53):
I don't really know.

Speaker 5 (35:54):
I was still surprised, honestly at the end that it
turns out to be her.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, yeah, I know. I thought maybe I didn't know.
I couldn't remember who it ended up being, and I
was just like, oh her.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
I thought I was gonna be Fiona, And that would
have made me really sad because that would have been
so cruel to her.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Because what happens next is that Fiona divulges to Charles
that the man that she has been in love with
for a very long time is none other than Charles,
and they're both just sort of like, oh shucks.

Speaker 4 (36:28):
That was Yeah, that was I thought that again, like
of the subversive things that this movie does, I was surprised,
I guess by that plot point, and not in a
bad way.

Speaker 5 (36:41):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 4 (36:42):
It also seems like Fiona is bummed out that she's
in love with Charles.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Like she.

Speaker 4 (36:49):
It seems like she's like, I mean, it is like
the whatever the curse of being like attracted to a
good friend is. You also know you're well aware of
everything that's wrong with though. Yeah, so it's like hard
to romanticize she but yeah, she's sort of I thought
it was just funny the way that she sort of
presents like, yeah, I'm in love with you.

Speaker 5 (37:09):
I'm just as upset about it as you are.

Speaker 4 (37:11):
Like it's a bummer, but you know, I guess, I
guess I hadn't seen that dynamic presented in quite that way.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
I liked it because it was not really like old
school love, like where you just like you like love
someone and there's like nothing you can do about it.
I don't even know if that would happen to me.

Speaker 2 (37:29):
Now, yeah, I feel like i'd be too jaded.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Yeah, yeah, I'm too jaded. I'd just be like I
wouldn't be even able to get to those levels of
feelings for someone.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Well, yeah, I know I would.

Speaker 5 (37:42):
After forty five seconds, it's nice.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I'm sick. Oh freak uh no. Anyway, so Carrie and
Hamish each give a speech at the reception during what
Charles's friend Gareth suffers I think a heart attack and
passes away. And so the funeral part of the title

(38:10):
of this movie is his funeral. All of his friends attend.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
I was pissed off it pissed curiating, don't piss me
off there, It's like, of course, yeah, it's it's four
weddings of eight annoying straight people and we kill one
of our only two queer characters.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Yes, but don't you think that mirrors life often? I mean,
you go to a lot of weddings are very annoying
straight people.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
That's true, that is true, But it's like I'm watching
this in my spare time.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
There's also a line because Matthew gives a very heartfelt eulogy.
He says that Gareth preferred going funerals over weddings because
he liked the idea of going to something that he
would actually experience one day, because he couldn't experience a
wedding since he's gay. And I don't know when or it's.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
Same sex marriage twenty fourteen, Okay, yeah, no, it's very
very much not like.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
Ten years away from twenty years.

Speaker 5 (39:20):
Yeah, but I also.

Speaker 4 (39:21):
Think, you know, I even so, even if it was not,
you know, legal, there's plenty of like partnership celebrations that happened,
like with gay couples for sure, prior to like it
could have it didn't need to be a recognized by
the government wedding.

Speaker 5 (39:41):
We could have had a gay wedding. Come on, yeah,
why did we have a gay funeral? I'm so pissed.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
Akay, Yeah, it's sad, but I don't know. I think
that's one of the bits where it was like the
secretly gay surprise like the whole time, and I was like,
isn't that great that they're secretly gay, And like a
friend of mine who's also Americans and maybe was like, well,
I don't know. It just sort of implies that their
friends didn't pay an attention to what was going on

(40:08):
in their lives, Like you should have known that your
friends were gay.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
I thought that they were because they they kind of
they like share an affectionate moment. I think it's like
a kiss on the cheek the first time we see them.
So I guess I thought that they were like that
they were out and everyone knew the whole movie, or
that's how I interpreted it.

Speaker 3 (40:25):
No, no one knows. That's the point. Oh, they find
out at the funeral.

Speaker 5 (40:31):
Really.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Oh that wait, you were under the impression that they
knew the whole time those two were gay. Yes, No,
no one knows. Everyone finds out at the funeral, which
is why Childs says afterwards to Tom, we were proud
that we were in a friendship group where we were single,
but to all intensive purposes, two of us were secretly married,

(40:52):
and Tom says, yes, traitors in our midst No one,
Oh my god, I'm choking with emotion. No one knew
they were gay until the funeral. Well that's why it's
so like hotbreaking.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (41:02):
Okay, see that was like where my nineteen ninety four
goggles were not on, because I guess when you put
it that way, I guess we don't see other characters
acknowledge their relationship, but we as the audience, see that
they're together right away. So I guess I just I
put something contemporary on it and assumed that, like, of
course everyone knows they're together.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Yeah, but also the infection between them throughout the whole thing,
and like we know, I think that they like live together,
but I think people just think they're roommates so like friends.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
So I had two very different experiences watching this movie
within like a day apart to prep for this episode.
Because all the previous times I watched this movie, I
forgot everything. That's the other thing about this movie. As
soon as like if a few days pass I like
leaves you in a few days from now, it'll everything,
every detail will leave me. So when I watched it

(41:56):
this time, it was basically like watching it for the
first time again. I remembered nothing. So I didn't remember
anything about the relationship between Gareth and Matthew. So the
first time I watched this the other day to prep
for this episode, it took me till the end of
the movie to realize that they had been romantically partnered.

Speaker 3 (42:16):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Prior to that, I just was like, because I noticed
the moments that they like had a little bit of
like you know, uh, Matthew like wipes something off of Gareth's.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
Bearney all had such different experiences because I thought from
the moment you meet these two characters, I was like, oh,
these two are together, Look how like affectionate and sweet
they're being.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
I chalked that up to again, the first viewing of
this movie the other day, to Gareth is like really
wacky and zany, and so most of the times when
they have a moment like that of like physical embracing
or affection, I just chalked it up to like he's
a goof interests.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
One of those people that's like in the Historian, you know,
you go back in history and it's like they shared
a bed. One of them inherited the other as well.
It's like God in the bass Gates.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
You know, goofy, my aunt and her friend, Yeah run
a plant business.

Speaker 3 (43:15):
It's like she lived alone and she never got married.
She just all of her money went to a woman
whose bed she shared for twelve years. And you're like okay,
well okay.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
But then once I realized that they had been partnered
that whole time. On my second watch of this movie
aka this morning, I felt from like the whole time,
I was like, oh, yeah, no, it is clear that
they are romantically together.

Speaker 4 (43:42):
That's so in I guess that there. I mean, obviously,
nineteen ninety four, while you know, seeing queer characters in
movies obviously wasn't completely unheard of. But I do think
that it's especially presentations of gay characters in movies in
the nineties, I feel like it's so important because of

(44:04):
how prevalent AIDS was in the late eighties into the nineties,
that all representation specifically of gay men was like very intentional,
which is why it really really really bothered me that
they killed off one of our only gay characters.

Speaker 5 (44:20):
It's just, ugh, I hated it.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
I okay, I'm like trying to figure out if there
is a definitive read of like did people know or not?
And it seemed I this is blowing my mind. This
is a very interesting Ruschac test.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yeah, I guess for me, that's like one of the
key moments is the movie, and one of the reasons
why I think historically I've always said I quite liked
it is like the presence of a gay relationship that
isn't out, because I think it kind of is trying
to say something about that about that. I don't think
for these group of people at the time we were in

(44:59):
at it would be necessarily be super comfortable to be out,
and I think it's the funeral that forces that out
because it's like because British people will not talk about
their feelings, as we can see from this entire movie,
including one man who like just doesn't marry the person
he wants to marry because he can't be bothered to
tell her that he loves her.

Speaker 4 (45:19):
Well tried and it didn't work, so I guess has
to suck it.

Speaker 5 (45:24):
He has to take a woman down with him.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
But that's just Britain for you. That's just the British,
like we can't proses our emotions and so the entire
world has to come down with us because that's our
deal as a nation state. But I think, yeah, I
guess that's why at the time it was considered quite
radical maybe or not like radical. I don't know if

(45:48):
anyone would describe Fallings as the Funerals radical, but like
poignant that there was like these characters that were gay
and no one knew, and then like, but when you
love someone and you lose them, you have to admit
that you loved.

Speaker 4 (46:02):
Them, right, I agree, and I do, there's a way.
It's still it will always bother me that one of
the gay characters died and a million boring straight people lived.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
But I do that's fat.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
It does feel intentional in a positive way. And again,
I'm like trying to put nineteen ninety four goggles on.
It feels like intentional in a positive way, that their
love was in spite of all of the cultural stigma
and the fact that even their friends were not completely
aware that they were together, that their relationship was an

(46:36):
extremely positive and beautiful.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Probably the healthiest relationship of all the characters in the
entire movie exactly. And I don't think healthy is aware
of that. I do think the movie's aware of that.
And I did like whatever the end, like polaroids. I
love when a movie ends with a couple of polaroids.

Speaker 4 (46:54):
It's very parent Trapped nineteen ninety eight. True, but that
you see that Matthew like finds love again, and I thought, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
Think that's soul.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
Yes, yeah, I mean again in nineteen ninety four, the
bar was so low for queer representation on screen, but
the fact that like these characters are like not the
butt of a joke ever, or like their queerness is
never the butt of a joke.

Speaker 4 (47:22):
Well, and it's not just coded. It is like over,
oh they are over. It's I guess you can't really
say they're out characters because that's, I.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Guess not true.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Even though I didn't realize that I was.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
I was. I love that you thought everyone knew I
just But then why would the conversation happen after its
where he's like, we all thought we was sinking.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
I was being missus Millennium. I don't know, I'm.

Speaker 3 (47:45):
Just because the whole thing is like they have this
comversation where they're like, oh my god, crazy that two
of our friends were in love this whole time.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
A similar scene happens in the full Monty Actually, where
two of the characters on Like the Dance Troupe start
hooking up. They like, they get together, maybe fall in love,
and no one else in the troop knows about it
until at a funeral. Although it's neither of the gay
characters who dies, but they're at someone else's funeral and

(48:14):
they're like holding hands, and then the other men in
the dance troupe are like, whoa, yeah, I had no idea.
I have to watch the full Monty again. Oh it's
so good anyway. Uh. And we can talk more about
their relationship if we want. But back to the flim

(48:36):
Carrie is at the funeral. Why who does she know
of these people?

Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:44):
I was like, okay, maybe for this one. Perhaps she's
there to like pay her respects because it was her
wedding that Gareth died at, So like maybe maybe that's
why she's there. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
Yes, Also I don't know. Okay, let's do a thought exit.
If someone died at your wedding but they were a
plus one.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
I would I.

Speaker 4 (49:07):
Would, I just I would worry. Here's I would worry
that you would be viewed as like people would be
nervous to be around me after that.

Speaker 5 (49:16):
Like, I don't know if people would want you there.

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Oh you know, I think that you're like a bad
omen or something.

Speaker 4 (49:21):
They died at your wedding, but you weren't friends because
they were plus one.

Speaker 3 (49:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
I feel like you kind of look like the grim
Reaper showing up at the funeral, Like, I don't know,
I feel like that's that's I would I would send,
I would send flowers. I would send flowers, But I
don't think I would go because I think people would
look at me like the grim reaper.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
Would you cancel your honeymoon as well for someone else's
like a plus one that died at your wedding plus one?

Speaker 4 (49:46):
That's tough. That's it depends on if the flights are.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
But do we know for sure he was a plus one?

Speaker 5 (49:52):
We kind of how any of the how, I don't
know how. She knows Matthew either.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
So they met wedding number two Gareth and Carrie because
he's like, oh, we had this really funny girl at
this American girl at our table. She was really funny.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
So maybe Gareth was the invite.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Yeah, So I wondered if maybe, you know, like sometimes
you meet someone and then like you have a really
good fun bonding. And maybe because she's American and not repressed,
she knew he was gay, and she'd worked at Vogue
as well, so maybe she like met other queer people,
so she was like, this man is fun and gay,
and then actually maybe they developed a kind of bond
where she was like, I'm gonna invite this guy to

(50:32):
my wedding. We had a really good time at that
other wedding.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
I would I love this headcanon because that would require
that we get to know Gareth and Carrie, which I
would love.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
Imagine if we got a scene of Gareth and Carrie,
they would enough like the best of fun.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
It would have been really nice and well, I think
it would have been Gareth being fun and Carrie being
boring as fuck.

Speaker 3 (50:56):
She's had sex with three people. She's not boring.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
You're right, you're right, you're right. I just find her
to be such a like nothing character.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
But I don't think that's the fault of the character.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
No, no, no, it's the fault the writer. Yeh, ch exactly, yes, Okay.
So Carrie is at the funeral and she goes up
to Charles and she's like, remember when you told me
that you loved me? Well I liked that. Okay, bye,

(51:31):
and then she leaves her like grow up. And so
at this funeral, Charles, I'm not exactly sure whoa I mean.
So he has that conversation with Tom. They're talking about
love and romance, and the impression I got was that
Charles realizes that you that you could die at any

(51:53):
moment the way his friend died at any moment, and
that you have to kind of, to quote Jack Dawson
in Titanic, make each day count. Because we cut to
ten months later, Charles wakes up for a wedding. But
whose wedding is it? Surprise? It's his wedding. But wait,

(52:14):
who is he marrying his ex girlfriend Henrietta? So apparently
he'd had some kind of.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
Get away from her. Justice for Henrietta, she was literally
just getting over him too. She was just getting over him. Yes, indeed,
but he's not. He's he's marrying her instead. No, he's well,
he's thinking about it. He should end with her shooting him.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah, okay, So we're at his wedding. Charles is greeting
people as they arrive, including Carrie. She reveals that she
and Hamish have split up, and so Charles starts having
second thoughts about the marriage that he's about to enter into.
His feet are getting so cold, and he's asking Matthew

(53:08):
and David what he should do, but he ultimately decides
to go through with it despite all of his misgivings.
So the wedding begins and the priest gets to the
part where he says, you know, if anyone opposes this union,
speak now or forever hold your piece, which we all
remember is a very iconic moment in the movie Shrek.

Speaker 4 (53:29):
Yes, it's also a very iconic moment in fictional weddings
that I've actually never heard at an actual wedding. Because
I would love to object as like a joke, but
I've never actually heard it said at all.

Speaker 5 (53:43):
Five trillion been.

Speaker 3 (53:44):
To You've never had it said?

Speaker 2 (53:47):
No, Maybe they don't do it at American weddings.

Speaker 5 (53:49):
Wait, have you heard it?

Speaker 3 (53:51):
I have had it.

Speaker 5 (53:52):
I'm so jealous.

Speaker 3 (53:55):
I've had it. But some people choose to have it caughtau.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
Okay, see because they don't want to give any and
the opportunity because they're gonna get divorced.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
I think so. But I've had it in church weddings before.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
Interesting. I'm gonna, I think, at my wedding, I'm gonna
let them. I'm gonna let them say it, and if
it's not there, I'm gonna say add it in added
in let's make this a group discussion.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
Yeah, get it in there.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
I feel like it's almost a way of showing your
confident enough in your relationship that you don't think anyone's
going to object.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, so obviously I'm going to
your wedding, Jimmy.

Speaker 5 (54:26):
Well going to object.

Speaker 3 (54:30):
I guess of people. I don't really know.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
We'll see. I'm going to bring a projector and play
that scene from Shrek.

Speaker 4 (54:40):
A super cut of wedding objections. There's it's statistically you
would think it happens every other wedding if you had
just seen weddings in movies. Yeah, exactly, And honestly, if
someone objects like that, that keeps the afternoon juicy. That
I feel like, you know, people are traveling from out
of town, they should get a show, exactly.

Speaker 5 (54:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Anyway, so David objects, yeah, and he signs while Charles
translates vocally that David suspects that the groom is having doubts,
having such doubts that he loves someone else, and Charles
admits this is true. So Henrietta punches him in the

(55:20):
face and the wedding is called off. We cut to
Charles and his friends like backstage or whatever. He's freaking
the fuck out, and then the doorbell rings and it's
Carrie and she's soaking wet from the rain and she's like,
whoops it, Aisy, I shouldn't have come to the wedding.

(55:41):
I guess I kind of ruined it. And he's like, no,
I'm glad you did. It made me realize that I
was about to marry the wrong person because I love
someone else and that someone else is you, and I
want to be with you forever, but let's not get
married because I don't think I believe even marriage or
it's not for me.

Speaker 4 (56:02):
I was like, yeah, you too, Like I mean, not
to defend marriage, but I'm like, yeah, clearly, you too
are not very decisive people, so maybe marriage is not
for you.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
I think it was like a lot to go through
for this man to realize that what he's against is
like getting married as an institution like like that that
was kind of like the big takeaway was that this
guy shouldn't really get married. Of the film, which is like,
you needed too much stuff to happen for that growth

(56:36):
to happen.

Speaker 4 (56:37):
Yeah, well, like they need like an open relationship or
something too, because yeah, because she I mean again and
I I'm trying not to pass judgment on her, and
because I really don't care, And I actually kind of
thought it was cool that she cheated on her fialt
and the movie didn't punish her for it, even though
is that a nice thing to do.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
In a monogamous relationship?

Speaker 4 (57:00):
Obviously not, but I feel like, usually, particularly for women
who cheat, the punishment by the plot is so over
the top, like she dies, like right, and so for
that to not happen in this movie I really liked.
But also they should like be in an open relationship,
they should just date for a while, Yeah, for sure,

(57:20):
And it seems like that's what they decide to do.
While David gets married and Matthew finds a new partner
in La La La.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Right, because the movie ends with a montage of photos
of a bunch of people getting together romantically. Henrietta marries
someone else. I don't know who that guy is, but
she finds love elsewhere better.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Than He had the same face as her, which I enjoyed,
didn't that he looked like.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
So we get those snapshots, we see David has married
the woman he at the second wedding who had been
learning that British sign language. Scarlet marries an American guy
that she met at the third wedding chester Chester. Tom
marries a lady who he knew for I Okay, now

(58:20):
that's funny.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
I'm laughing. I'm laughing.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
Yeah, because he's like, I'm cousin Judy or whatever, and
he's like, oh so your family. She's like, only very
distantly and it's so posh and it's so upper class
British to definitely marry someone you're already slightly related to.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (58:38):
Yeah, that felt very class commentary to me, which I did.
Maybe I'm being too cavalier, but it definitely felt like
a class commentary thing.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
But for a moment I was watching that scene, I
was like, what is this incest meet cute that I'm watching?

Speaker 3 (58:55):
Like, that's what it was, And that's how rich people
in England find. Part is they.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
Find they go to the family reunion.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Reunion and they marry cousin dedre.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
You hate to see. Yeah, anyway, Fiona marries Prince Charles.

Speaker 4 (59:13):
Really bizarre, really bizarre.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
I feel like that's trying to say she's so optight
that that would be passing good enough for her.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
Well, because it's mine because she and Tom are brothers, right,
and it's established that Tom is like the seventh richest
person in the UK or something.

Speaker 3 (59:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:30):
So, and also, this is an interesting time to be
portrayed as marrying Prince Charles because I had to like
fact check. I'm like, what amount of divorced were Charles
and Diana at this point? And the answer is sort of, oh,
wait was she When.

Speaker 2 (59:47):
Did she die?

Speaker 4 (59:48):
She died in ninety seven, but their divorce wasn't finalized
until ninety six. But I think that they were already
in the process of splitting up. I don't know, some
nebulous in between. I was like, there's some there's some
British stuff going on here that I don't fully understand.
Was like, I don't know how the timeline worked. Wasn't
there for sure?

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
For sure?

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
And then finally we see Charles and Carrie together. They're
not getting married, but they are holding a baby the end.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
Yes, yeay, we.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Let's take a quick break and we'll come back to
discuss and we're back, and we're back.

Speaker 4 (01:00:41):
I guess let's start by just sort of closing the
loop on Carrie. We've been talking about her quite a bit. Yeah,
I think that I've basically said what I wanted to
say about the carry, like I do think that there
are subversive aspects to her character, but there is a
really clear lack of character outside of that subversion. So

(01:01:06):
her being sex positive great, her not being punished by
the plot for being sex positive and having sex for
pleasure great, But like a second fact about her never materializes,
and in a way that like, and I love Auntie McDowell,
but it's like she just doesn't really have Like I
found so much of her behavior confusing because I don't

(01:01:28):
know anything about her. I don't understand why she's doing
like a wedding dress montage with this guy she's hooked
up with, a couple of times. I don't understand, Like
there's I couldn't track her behavior because anything with her
could be true outside of anything related to her being
sex positive.

Speaker 5 (01:01:47):
So I just like, I guess it's it's weird because
it's glaring to me.

Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
But I also don't have that much to say about
it because it's like I don't really object to a
lot about her character because there isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
There isn't much. Yeah, I also found her sense of
humor really she clearly has a sense of humor, but
I found it so confusing, especially the scene where It's
the morning after they've had sex for the first time,
and she says something like, when were you planning to
announce the engagement? Well, we've slept together, of course the

(01:02:20):
way assumed we'd be getting married. And then Hugh Grant
is doing his like stammering Hugh Grant thing, and then
he's like, wait a minute, you're just fucking with me,
and she's like tea, And I was like, what is
this joke?

Speaker 3 (01:02:34):
Like, I didn't think it was a joke.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Oh you think she was serious?

Speaker 3 (01:02:38):
Yeah, because she then says, I think we both missed
a great opportunity here.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
I think that both things are true, though I think
she thinks that they they did miss an opportunity to
like spend more time together.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I thought that was in reference to her, like she's
about to go back to the US, so they like
couldn't pursue anything. But I did assume that she was
joking about that, like weird let's get married thing.

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
I sort of viewed that joke as like just a
way to set up the lazy fatal attraction joke.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
I thought she was a slut who but in a
positive way, and she had hit the time that she
wanted to get married was the vibe I got of her.
And I'm reading a lot intern and I think she
felt like it was her time. She'd worked a vogue,
it was her time now to find her husband. So

(01:03:31):
I think she was saying to him, Yeah, a little
bit in jest, but like a little bit serious, like
if you're serious about this, I will come from America,
and like we can pursue something, but you need to
be in it, and you're not giving me any vibes
that you want to necessarily see me like more than this,
So like is there anymore? And then how Hamish got

(01:03:54):
her was he just got her at a time where
she was like I'm looking for a husband, because otherwise
why would she marry that old man?

Speaker 4 (01:04:03):
Well, I just don't know enough about her to understand
what drew her to Himish, Like I is she looking
for security? Does she genuinely love him? It doesn't really
seem that way. I mean it seems more like a
handshake marriage than anything else, because she doesn't really have
an issue with cheating on him, which.

Speaker 5 (01:04:19):
Is like relationships like that exist.

Speaker 4 (01:04:21):
But like I, I just didn't have enough information, and
that also is not limited to Carrie's character because I
guess I just sort of like, oh, I don't think
that she would want to really be with Charles because
we're told by Fiona that, like he doesn't have enough
money for her, which leads me to.

Speaker 5 (01:04:40):
The question, what does he do?

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
What's a second fact about him?

Speaker 5 (01:04:46):
And I was like, I don't know anything about.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Him, any second facts about him.

Speaker 4 (01:04:49):
We don't really know anything about anyone.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
No, you can say that this woman character was badly portrayed,
but no one has a job, No one see kind
of do anything apart from just go to a series
of like different life events services in churches, and that's unusual.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
So I found something about this basically Richard Curtis, who
kind of based this movie off of like his experience
of over the course of four years or something like that,
he attended sixty five weddings what and it one of
them so popular?

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:05:31):
Wow? I was like, Wow, he must be a really
fun guy to hang out with.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
You must be, he didn't think.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
So he was friends with David Cameron, who did Brexit Jesus.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Okay, yeah, so well, okay, so At won such wedding. Yeah,
he was propositioned by someone and turned that person down
and then lived to regret it. And so he was like, Okay,
what if what if I wrote a movie that the
person doesn't earn the other person down and four weddings

(01:06:03):
in a funeral was born.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
Guess what, Richard Curtis, I look as someone who famously
fucked my.

Speaker 5 (01:06:09):
Life up for a goudy.

Speaker 4 (01:06:10):
You never go home with someone at a wedding and
then talk to them again. You can go home with them.

Speaker 5 (01:06:17):
But then you have to just wake up and be like,
all right, let's see you never see.

Speaker 4 (01:06:23):
You never enjoy your life. If you ever have regretted
not hooking up with someone at a wedding or not
following up after you hooked up with them, don't make
my mistakes. Don't contact them.

Speaker 3 (01:06:35):
I feel like I need to know so much about
this story.

Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
I can't.

Speaker 5 (01:06:40):
We'll talk, we'll talk about it, we'll talk about it.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
But I think I think that is another I should
have said that at the beginning. I will never be
like I really enjoyed this movie where two people meet
at a wedding.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
It's triggering, that's traumatizing.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
Actually, don't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
But the point is that Richard car just based this
off of some of like some experiences he had kind
of and he said that he chose to omit the
characters like talking about their jobs or like giving us
a sense of what they do for a living, because
he felt a group of friends would not discuss their

(01:07:21):
jobs while at weddings.

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
I think in the nineties that's true. I think we're
at a different stage of capitalism where everyone discusses their
job all the time because it's very stressful and everyone
works a lot and it's very burnt out. But I
think people in the nineties didn't work that much and
still have quite nice houses. And so what you're going
to talk about, I guess.

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
I guess that still doesn't explain. That explains the friend
stuff to me. That doesn't explain Carrie though, because she
doesn't know them, Like what else does she have to
talk to them about, other than how she knows that
people getting.

Speaker 5 (01:07:54):
Married, but she will famously never disclose.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Also, like, I'm okay with not knowing what a person
does for their job, because people are not defined by
the labor that they do. If we knew other things
about them, what are their interests, what are their views
on the world, like any other things. But that's also lacking.

Speaker 3 (01:08:15):
These people are too posh.

Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
Maybe, I mean, yeah, because I had that question as well.
I mean we sometimes I think the most we learned
about characters is like whether they're rich or not by
the standards of the people at the wedding, which seems
quite high. Yeah, because we find out that like whoever
has like castle money or Tom Yeah, like we don't
really understand how, but like he has castle money, sure

(01:08:41):
inheritage that's happened, right, Like it's like scary generational wealth.

Speaker 5 (01:08:46):
I guess it's tricky because I don't. Personally, I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:08:52):
It makes it for me, makes it just like hard
to get attached to any of the characters if if
they're in this kind of behavioral war. But it doesn't
at least seem like it's a gendered decision where we
know a lot about the male characters and we don't
know about the women. We kind of just know nothing
about anyone, but there are gendered elements to how we

(01:09:15):
see women, and especially women who are not Carrie.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Yeah, well I was thinking about that where I'm like, Okay,
why do Charles and Carrie like each other? Since we
know so little about either of them and there is
a scene where you could argue Charles is being funny
and charming during his best man speech, and maybe that's
part of what endears Carrie to him, But we don't

(01:09:42):
have anything like that for Carrie for Charles to be
endeared to carry.

Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
So it just seems I think if you think that
weird joke about don't you want to get married? Is funny,
then they crack each other up, then maybe I don't
know I did understand why they Also, I'm not convinced
that they're in love. I'm convinced that they're like really
horny for each other and it's long distance and exciting,

(01:10:08):
Like these two don't actually know each other. They've spent
a lot of really sexually charged time together, so like
whatever that can turn into love. But like when he
first says I think I'm in love with you, I
know that word as the audience supposed to believe it,
but like if you've been alive long enough, you're like, well, no,
you don't.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
He's known her, he hung out with her three times
at that point.

Speaker 5 (01:10:28):
But that does happen. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:10:30):
It's very movie logic, but I'm never gonna question, like,
why does someone think they're in love with nineteen ninety
four Hugh Grant like it just makes sense, beautiful, And
same with Andy McDowell like the I'm like, yeah, of
course you think you're in love with her.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
Look, I think the movie is fundamental. Everyone's purpose in
the movie for some reason, seems to be getting married.
Like no one seems to have a personality alive or
anything other than like, I'm trying to get married here.
And that's why what I think what she says is
not a joke. And I think the movie is like
sex is cool and everyone's trying to get married.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Again a concept that this movie invented.

Speaker 3 (01:11:09):
Yeah, sex is cool and everyone's trying to get married. So, like,
I don't know. I just was like, Oh, for these
people who maybe have very little in terms of like
problems or strife or conflict in their life, they just
marry someone that they're like really horny for because they
don't have anything else.

Speaker 4 (01:11:28):
So but then she is she horny for Hamish? Like again,
I just feel like.

Speaker 3 (01:11:33):
I don't know, but she was horny for marriage.

Speaker 5 (01:11:36):
She's okay.

Speaker 4 (01:11:37):
So that was my a question I had about this
movie that I'm like, it feels both progressive and regressive
at the same time, because it is a sex positive movie,
but everyone is obsessed with like legal marriage in the UK,
and so it's like it just feels like these two

(01:11:58):
things are sort of odd, and I think that maybe
to some extent, that's what it's about. But the institution
of marriage itself experiences really not a ton of pushback,
other than at the very end when they realize, oh,
we just don't want to get married.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
But that's why it's the twist, yeah, right, because everyone
everyone gets married in this movie for the most part,
Like Bernard and Lydia are like the most obvious is
like Lydia is like, I'm not going to hook up
with you, Bernard, You're a loser.

Speaker 2 (01:12:29):
And I'm not that desperate.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
And then they really drunk and they start snogging at
the end of the night, which I kind of really
like enjoy, I like enjoy those kind of developments of
these secondary characters, and then they just like get married
because clearly they love to fuck. And it's like the
only reason, only justification anyone has in this movie to
be with someone else is like the sex was bomb,

(01:12:51):
and maybe we'd have a lot less problems if the
only reason anyone got married was because it was like,
I just want to fuck you. Oh, rest of time.

Speaker 4 (01:13:00):
It's like, yeah, you can do that for like you
don't need to legally. Yeah, you're really right where it's
I don't know, I mean, and obviously that was something
that existed in the nineties, but.

Speaker 5 (01:13:13):
It also just feels a little.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:13:16):
It feels a little outdated in nineteen ninety four to
suggest that, like you, I don't know, I know that
the movie subverted at the end. It's just the premise
is kind of bizarre to me.

Speaker 2 (01:13:28):
Right, Well, okay, I was trying to figure out what,
if anything this movie is trying to say about sure,
the institution of marriage, because the way it ends with
the two main characters we've been following this whole time
is Charles saying, let's not get married. I don't think
I'm cut out for it, and she says, I do

(01:13:50):
want to be with you, but not want to get married. Right,
So I'm just like, okay, right, it seems like the
movie is saying a committed relationship doesn't need to Coleman
and I legally binding marriage. You don't have to get
married to be happy. Sure, which I very much support that,
and I appreciate when a movie puts forward a message

(01:14:12):
like that. However, the way this movie handles that doesn't
really work for me, because I'm not seeing how Charles
or Carrie come to this realization, Like I'm not seeing
much in the way of character growth or a character
arc that leads them to this line of thinking. They
just kind of like randomly decide it one day, and

(01:14:34):
it honestly just feels like it's kind of tacked on
at the end of the movie without feeling earned in
any way. And then if this is the message of
the movie of like a happy, healthy, romantic relationship does
not have to lead to marriage, it almost feels like
it's being undermined by the photomontage of like five different

(01:14:56):
couples getting married. Yeah, and then the only ones that
don't are Matthew and his new boyfriend because they legally
cannot get married, and then Charles and Kerry because they've
decided not to write, which again is like pretty reflective
of real life. A lot of people do get married.
And but like the ethos of this movie is really it's.

Speaker 4 (01:15:20):
Just weird, vague, it's weird, and it was worth saying
I mean tremendously successful. It was oh, a surprise hit
a budget of around three million pounds that made two
hundred and eighteen million pounds.

Speaker 2 (01:15:37):
It was the highest grossing British film of the time,
which is like four a time.

Speaker 5 (01:15:44):
Pretty wild. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:15:45):
It reminds me of I feel like the American version
of this is my big fact Greek wedding, a surprise
hit wedding movie and who can say why, also very
reflective of their respective times. But yeah, I don't know.
And then the other women in this friend group, Fiona
I thought was quite interesting and whatever. I didn't love

(01:16:07):
the joke they sent her character out on, but it
just I don't know. We do get characters that I'm
curious to know more about. Unfortunately, Charles and Carrie are
not two of those characters. But Fiona, I felt like,
is a pretty rich character who we because again we
mostly know about her through the lens of like romance.

(01:16:28):
But it was like, that's a very complicated dynamic you
don't see very often, at least in this way where
it's like she's in love with her friend, they find
out and then they just have to sort of continue
being friends.

Speaker 5 (01:16:42):
And I was.

Speaker 4 (01:16:43):
I guess I was like more curious about what her
emotional journey was if the limitations on this movie are
like we only care about like the romantic goals of
these characters. And I really like Christin Scott Thomas, which
is maybe a part of it. But yeah, I don't know.
I just thought, like, that's an interesting character who we
only really scratch the surface of. Poor Henrietta is just

(01:17:06):
like the subject of fat jokes, appears to have an
active eating disorder. It seemed to be in a like
really emotional like I think she's basically made out to
be hysterical at multiple points for sure the plot. And
so I think by the time that Charles marries her
and breaks her heart, sure she gets the like nineties

(01:17:28):
girl power punch, but I don't I think by then
we've kind of been conditioned as the audience to like
dismiss her and not care.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
We are rooting against them getting married, against them.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
Yeah, we're not necessarily rooting against her, which is why
she gets the punch in But I just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:43):
That just bummed me. It bummed me out, Yeah, for sure.
And then Scarlett was a character who I'm like, she's
she seems fun, she's quirky. There's a weird scene. I
think it's the second wedding. She's a bridesmaid and part
of her dress, like the back of her dress is
open and it exposes her underwear. And I kept thinking, Oh,

(01:18:04):
this is gonna be a big moment where someone notices
it and starts laughing and she's super embarrassed and it
humiliates the bride or something. But then nothing happens. It
just cuts to the next scene.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
Which is funny because when she loses her like bo
on her dress, he does say, don't worry, no one
will notice that. Clearly they did.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
It, and they didn't even though her whole ass was
hanging out. Yeah, whoa wild.

Speaker 3 (01:18:29):
She's a great character. I think she's fun.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
I thought she was super fun. She does surprise kiss
a man and then say, don't let me drink too much.
I'll get really flirty.

Speaker 4 (01:18:42):
Kate, I'm gonna hear you out. I liked Scarlet too.
I thought she was the most like visually distinct, like
she had style, she had like I liked her.

Speaker 3 (01:18:52):
She felt like she didn't fit in their rich friendship group,
the rich person friendship group, like I don't think she
made sense there, And so the impression I got was
that she was like Charles's housemaid. But I like that
she's like under the table telling this like child who there. Yeah,
there's like a child she's telling who She's like the
men I like, I like, they bonk me and then

(01:19:15):
they leave me. And then the men that like me,
I think a dweebs and I can't be bothered to
bonk them. And she's sort of having this really adult
conversation with the child under the table, which I really
enjoy it. And then she's also the closest person we
get to someone who having a job because she goes
for a job interview at some sort of social store.
Yeah that sells like latex PVC, like a.

Speaker 5 (01:19:38):
Very nineties way of describing a sex story.

Speaker 4 (01:19:41):
Be So first I was like it's a what and
then you're like, oh, okay, I guess that she's just
being British about.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
It, called spanks, and so she we know that like
she at least looks to earn her money, which maybe
the other these other people in the film, I don't
get the impression they seem to earn money or need
to earn money.

Speaker 5 (01:20:02):
Yeah, I guess it's just like I I.

Speaker 4 (01:20:04):
The more we talk about this, like the nebulous nature
of this friend group, like I just needed like a
big chill kind of framing device. Just tell me they're
friends from childhood, they went to school together.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Give me something just to push people friends.

Speaker 4 (01:20:20):
I mean, I guess I just don't care about that,
and maybe that's a barrier to entry with this movie.
I'm like, Oh, I don't know, Scarlette's too cool for
the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
I agree, Yeah, she's really cool and she seems like
the most normal. I think there's a class thing where
going on, and it's certain likely exemplified by the creepy
man that's chasing Carrie in the beginning, because there's a
bit when they're sat at the Boatman Pub and he's like,

(01:20:52):
how did you know the guy? Like how do you
know the guy who's wedding? It was Angus? He's like, oh,
from university and he's like, oh, I knew him from
s school. His brother buggered me senseless, which is quite
an insane thing to have in a movie that I
don't think is like very highly rated, but like, do
you know are you familiar with no? No? Is?

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
It like was he being sexually assaulted.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
Yes, so buggering in a British private school what we
call the public schools because that's what they were historically called,
but like in a British boarding school is when the
older kids sexually assault the younger ones.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
I've heard of this as a thing that happens very
commonly in British schools.

Speaker 3 (01:21:36):
Yeah, and it's kind of so normalized and accepted in
our culture that this thing happens that you can throw
it in a movie with like no, I don't know,
like nothing around it, no summer, and no real acknowledgment
that this man has probably been through something like.

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
A throwaway joke.

Speaker 3 (01:21:55):
Almost Yeah, that's like a throwaway joke. And I find that,
like I don't know, kind of really interesting that in
one of our biggest movies, everyone's like, yeah, sure that
just like someone said that, and then we just it's
nothing to do with anything.

Speaker 2 (01:22:07):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):
There's also I was curious if either of you picked
up on this of in Carrie's list, there's like one
person who I thought it was maybe referencing an assault.
I believe it was number eleven, and I think it
was like some sort of distancing phrase of like an

(01:22:29):
unpleasant surprise or like there's a there's a bizarre turn
of phrase that I was like, is this nineties distancing
talk for like an assault that she didn't yet kind
of view as an assault. Yeah, there's a few things
that feel extremely of the time, and Kate, Yeah, I
didn't even have the language to pick up on that.

Speaker 5 (01:22:50):
That's wild.

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
I think that's the thing, Like, like I get that
they're all right, I think, but that situates for me
that they're all incredibly posh people, and posh people don't
necessarily need jobs, and that's why they've got time to
go to like sixty five weddings, Like I don't know
anyone who's got the time to do that more than right,
And that's why they don't have personalities, because you don't

(01:23:14):
need a personality if you've been born into money.

Speaker 2 (01:23:18):
Wow, bleak but true.

Speaker 4 (01:23:21):
I was like, Wow, a moment of silence for that.

Speaker 5 (01:23:24):
God.

Speaker 2 (01:23:25):
Yes, I mean also worth noting that this is a
profoundly white yes movie. Yeah, every one everywhere, in all
of the scenes, at all the weddings and the funeral
and that are taking place in and around London. Yeah,
every single person is white.

Speaker 3 (01:23:46):
Yes, there is one black person in the whole movie,
and it's just at the funeral, and it's just a
cut to his face and he's doing a sort of
pensive smile and that's it. And my mother's like, I
love that black guy. And I'm like, sure.

Speaker 4 (01:24:02):
Representation when I guess we don't know any less about
him than we do anyone else in so it doesn't Lastly,
if he likes sex, then we know the same amount
about him a.

Speaker 5 (01:24:14):
Sweet about everybody else.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
But yeah, I also picked up on that shot where
you were like, and it's also in the eleventh hour
of the movie, at.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
The very end.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
Yes, they're like, there's this black guy. He's also here.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Don't worry, right, I want to talk about David Charles's brother.
He is deaf. It did take me a while to
figure out who he was to everyone, and.

Speaker 4 (01:24:42):
Yeah, which is I did at least in step with
the rest of the movie where it does take you
a while. It took me a while to figure out
that they were brothers, right.

Speaker 3 (01:24:51):
They says so early on in the film that brother
they do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
But if you turn your head for one second, which
I did quite often watching this movie because I I
just kept checking out, you miss that, and it's not
until about halfway through the movie where Charles goes to
meet up with him and then promptly abandon him, but
that you actually realize, oh, like, okay, these are the brothers.
Here's the situation. Anyway, So he is he's a deaf character.

(01:25:19):
He is played by a deaf actor, David Bauer. He
studied at the British Theater of the Deaf. I want
to share a quote from him from a BBC interview
in twenty ten about this movie. He said, quote, Richard
Curtis wanted an actor who was actually deaf in real
life to play that role, which I think was particularly enlightened.

(01:25:44):
People ask me why I gave up film acting. I
didn't give it up. I just couldn't find the parts.
I'm hoping that one day deaf actors will be able
to play all kinds of parts, not just deaf people. Unquote,
which speaks to a conversation we've had many many times
on the show before as far as disability representation. Oftentimes

(01:26:04):
a disabled character will be played by an able bodied actor,
you know, and all the problems inherent in that. So
I was encouraged by the fact that he does have
a few important moments in the movie, particularly at Charles's wedding,
where he's the catalyst to putting an end to it

(01:26:26):
and kind of saving these two characters from a marriage
that would have been absolutely miserable for both of them.

Speaker 4 (01:26:32):
But still, I mean still firmly a side character which
is not shock. I was reminded of the conversation we
had around the holidays last year around actor Tyrone Giordano,
who write plays I had to look it up because
I do not remember the name of the characters in
the family Stone, but he played Tadstone of courd Who

(01:26:57):
can forget that the character's name of tad Stone. But
a similar a movie that came out ten years later
with you know, kind of a similar trajectory for the actor,
where it was a deaf character played by a deaf
actor who did not go on to work as extensively
as he deserved to. Yeah, so I'm just tacking that

(01:27:17):
on that ten years passed in that did not improve,
but also in nineteen ninety four, it's that's a great
precedent to set and I think one of the other
kind of more subversive elements of this of this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:27:30):
I think it's so sweet as well that that woman like, well,
she basically decides she thinks he's fit and then decides
to learn sign language for him and then signs everything
wrong a little bit. And that's quite funny.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
Which is again every single relationship in this movie where
someone's like, oh, that person's hot, let me see if
I can go have sex with them. Yeah, So it's
not even cool to step with the rest of the movie.
But I was really I thought it was like, really
encouraging to see a non disabled character put in effort
to learn a language so that they could communicate with

(01:28:04):
a disabled character and then have that work out great
for them because they seem to fall in love and
get married.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
Yeah, and that like it was. It's just presented. I
think similarly in the way that I like how Carrie's
attitudes towards sex for pleasure is presented. It's very matter
of factly. The movie kind of doesn't comment on it.

Speaker 5 (01:28:23):
It just is. I like that.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:26):
How did you feel about the comments about Americans?

Speaker 2 (01:28:31):
Oh, oh, I don't hear about that.

Speaker 5 (01:28:33):
I agree.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
Yeah, that's the thing is if you talk to Americans,
they're like no, no, correct, Yeah, that is how it is.
I don't know, because there was quite a lot of like, well,
when Scarlett falls in love with Chester and seemingly she
just falls in love because he says his name's read right,
and then she laughs at that for ages, and then

(01:28:56):
she's like, wow, I'm in love with him.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
Basically there's a gun with a wind referenced and she's like, wow,
we're in love now.

Speaker 4 (01:29:03):
So like, yeah, when when British people are bullying American people,
I'm like, it's colonizers bullying colonizers. You're like, it's it's
it's like neutral, it's neutral whatever. Yeah, yeah, we all
wear cowboy hats whatever, cheerio.

Speaker 3 (01:29:16):
But maybe that depends on which American people were talking about,
So we have to be sure.

Speaker 2 (01:29:22):
I mean, I guess anyone who's like proud to be
an American would take offense to Yeah, the jokes in
this movie about that.

Speaker 4 (01:29:29):
But that's a yeah, I mean, that's a dog whistley.

Speaker 3 (01:29:32):
But that in itself is a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
Yeah, yes, not to keep beating the dead horse of
the of the maybe joke that Carrie does in the
bedroom where she's like, we had sex, so now we
have to get engaged and get married. I thought that
might have been her playing into British people's perception of

(01:29:55):
Americans where I don't know, I feel like a lot
of people think that Americans are really like puritanical when
it comes to sex.

Speaker 3 (01:30:03):
Yeah, okay, I think that's why I read it as
not a joke. But in okay, for a lot of
British people, I think we think that Americans are quite
quick to get married on the whole, Like there's a
kind of cultural thing around it that like Americans would
want to get engaged after set.

Speaker 4 (01:30:25):
But that's like, but everyone in this movie gets married
after forty five seconds, So it's kind of like he's
casting stones here.

Speaker 2 (01:30:34):
They're like, no, you're doing that.

Speaker 4 (01:30:36):
But also meanwhile, everyone's getting married after three.

Speaker 2 (01:30:38):
Months in this movie. Truly, I think that she is
aware of that perception of Americans and played on it
and made that joke. That's how I interpreted it.

Speaker 3 (01:30:49):
I think they don't even haven't even thought this through,
and we're giving it so much depth, and I love
that We're like, we're giving this woman like this is
a really clever joke to make or something. But actually
I don't know if at any point they thought this through.

Speaker 2 (01:31:06):
Yeah, perhaps not. I will say that this is a
rare case of a woman co lead being paid more
than the man even though she has less screen time.
And I think it's just because Anty McDowell was more
famous than Hugh Grant at the time. But she was
paid two hundred and fifty thousand dollars up front, while

(01:31:28):
Hugh Grant was paid thirty five thousand British pounds, which
would have been the equivalent of what like around fifty
thousand dollars depending on the conversion rate at the time,
So she was paid almost two hundred thousand dollars more
than him.

Speaker 3 (01:31:45):
I'm really happy to hear that she was paid loads
more for I would say, quite a lot less.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Work, A lot less work. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (01:31:52):
I love Antie McDowell rocks. I wish that they had
written more of a part for her, but uh, a
win for Andy McDowell, I feel is a win for
us all.

Speaker 3 (01:32:05):
And in terms of like girl Boss feminism, maybe it's
quite cool that she had a very small part and
didn't have to do any character study or really act
all that much and still get more money.

Speaker 4 (01:32:18):
I kind of I have to agree with you where
it's like, there are certain times where I I don't know.
I'm like, well, you know, even if the part isn't great,
a woman made a shitload of money and she didn't
even really need to try.

Speaker 5 (01:32:37):
So there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:32:38):
Maybe Richard Curtis is the most feminist of us all.

Speaker 2 (01:32:43):
Feminist icon Richard Curtis. The last very quick thing I
had in my notes was it seems like there are
a couple agist jokes about an old man who I
think makes like two appearances at different weddings, who like,
we're meant to think that he's quote unquote senile.

Speaker 5 (01:33:03):
Oh yeah, I'll just say.

Speaker 4 (01:33:04):
I was like, there were so many nineties tropes present
that didn't even register for me.

Speaker 5 (01:33:08):
But you're you are absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
I really enjoyed that old man, that he was so funny.

Speaker 2 (01:33:13):
I like the man, but it's just that, like it's
problem there's agism at his expense. I do, like, I
think it's funny when someone says to him, like Brider
Groom when he's like entering the church and he's like,
it's perfectly obvious that I'm neither, and I'm like, that's
actually pretty funny.

Speaker 3 (01:33:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:33:29):
I don't even know if that's like senility as much
as like a different, more nebulous trope of like old
people don't understand what young people are saying.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Well, I thought it was implied that he's senile, because
the other time we see him earlier is when Charles
says like, hello, nice to meet you. I'm Charles, and
then he goes, no, you're not. Charles died twenty years ago.
Do you think I don't know my own brother.

Speaker 4 (01:33:55):
I checked that up to British. I've checked that up
to I don't know. I was just like, people are
so weird, like, okay, yeah, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (01:34:04):
I see what you're saying.

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
Yeah. I thought too cracking jokes basic.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Well, okay, the one thing, the one joke that I
did think was funny in the entire Sorry, sorry everyone, Sorry,
you're not sorry. I'm not sorry. Okay. It's at the funeral,
Charles and Tom are talking about love and relationships and oh,
well they ever find someone and you know, and then

(01:34:32):
Tom says, I just hope to meet a nice woman
and settle down. It worked for my parents, well apart
from the divorce. And I'm like, that's pretty funny, but
otherwise I was struggling.

Speaker 3 (01:34:48):
Wow, that's so funny. I thought there were so many
great jokes.

Speaker 2 (01:34:53):
I maybe I just maybe I just don't get this,
this brand of British humor.

Speaker 3 (01:35:01):
Yeah. What about when he accidentally in the beginning is
like to that guy where he's like, ah, she's no
longer my girlfriend. Oh and then he's mardon, oh, no worries. Yeah, like,
no worries. She's was shagging someone else. And then he
was like, she's now my wife.

Speaker 2 (01:35:17):
Okay, fine, I was okay with that.

Speaker 5 (01:35:20):
Yeah, I was like, the women of this world are cheaters.

Speaker 3 (01:35:24):
The women in this world are like big sluts. But
everyone's here for it, I think, which is I think
quite progressive.

Speaker 2 (01:35:30):
I'd have to agree, Yeah, well does it Does this
movie pass the Bechdel test? No, No it doesn't. No,
it doesn't.

Speaker 4 (01:35:40):
And it's not even close, because, as with most movies
that there's a few cool.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
Women in that it is written by a man.

Speaker 4 (01:35:48):
They are like, almost implausibly kept away from each other.

Speaker 2 (01:35:55):
They are never there.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
There is one that I saw people arguing passing at
the very beginning, where they are insulting the first bride's
wedding dress. They say, she looks like I'm arangue. But
I would say, by our standard, it is not a
meaningful exchange of dialogue, and it's the only time these
characters talk.

Speaker 3 (01:36:14):
So the only conversation I'd noticed that was between two
people who I think were both women was when Fiona's
talking to that old lady at the reception of the
second wedding, and the old lady says, are you married?
And she says, no, I'm in love with someone, but
he's not in love with me, and until I get
over that, and then she says, or like before she

(01:36:36):
says that, she says, are you a lesbian? And I
guess asking someone if they're a lesbian is kind of
a conversation not about a man.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
I'd agree, yeah, but.

Speaker 3 (01:36:48):
It lasts for about ten seconds where she says, yeah,
are you a lesbian? She says, good, greateus. What makes
you say that? And then she said, it's just a
more interesting question to ask than like, oh, I'm sorry
you haven't found the right man, and then she sort
of reveals that she was a lesbian briefly for fifteen.

Speaker 5 (01:37:04):
Minutes in Uni Yes, yeah, which is yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:37:07):
Obviously her progressive way of that was how people talked
about it in the ninety shore. Yeah, we already talked
about how queerness is and isn't portrayed in this You know,
there are so many things that I'm like, oh, yeah,
that actually is a Bechtel cast thing to talk about.

Speaker 5 (01:37:24):
And I just my eyes were glazed.

Speaker 2 (01:37:27):
I know, I'm sure we're missing stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:37:29):
Sorry, we're being such haters. Sorry to the UK because.

Speaker 3 (01:37:35):
And you should be sorry. This is a national film.

Speaker 2 (01:37:38):
I mean, it is wild how.

Speaker 4 (01:37:41):
It is like one of those things where it's like
I know that people in the US have obviously a
lot of people have seen and liked it, but it
is just like not a classic in the way that
it is in the UK.

Speaker 3 (01:37:51):
It feels like such a classic from my childhood.

Speaker 4 (01:37:54):
Yeah, but it's unfortunately for the UK, does not pass
the Bechtel test by our.

Speaker 2 (01:38:01):
True But what about our nipple scale, where we create
the movie on a scale of zero zero to five nipples,
examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'll give it
one nibble, maybe even one and a half for a
few of the things we talked about. The movie is

(01:38:22):
allowing women to be sexually open and interested and just
having sex with a bunch of people in the movies,
not judging them for that it has. And again this
is like Crumbs, but it's it has a deaf character
played by a deaf actor. It has a queer relationship

(01:38:43):
that reflects that I think, like realistically reflects how it
could have been at the time where they were in
the closet, even to their closest friends. But when it
is revealed that they were in a queer relationship, their
friends still seem to be supportive. But it also does

(01:39:04):
the bury your gaye trope by killing one of the
two queer characters. So so I'm going to take it
down to one nipple. Again, such an aggressively white movie,
no racial diversity whatsoever. The smiles but sorry, sorry, sorry, yes,
don't erase him. Yeah, my apologies. Yeah, one nipple. I'll

(01:39:28):
give it to Scarlet because I would have liked more
of the movie to be about her.

Speaker 4 (01:39:34):
Yeah, I'll meet you. I'll meet you at like one
point two five.

Speaker 5 (01:39:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:39:42):
Yeah, I do think that this movie, Like, I don't
want to take away the things that this movie does
that are genuinely subversive and interesting for their time, having
a woman who has sex for pleasure and a sex positive,
having a gay couple that is not just heavily coded
as we're so used to seeing in the nineties, or
as like primarily a sassy sidekick. Although the barrier gaze

(01:40:04):
thing really really really bothers me in this movie, I
was like, oh, the funeral, I.

Speaker 5 (01:40:10):
Just know it. I just know it.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
And sure enough, and yeah, I think every we've basically
discussed everything. So I'm going to give it one point
twenty five and I'm going to give them to my
friend Andy McDowell.

Speaker 5 (01:40:25):
I love her smile.

Speaker 2 (01:40:26):
Hmm, Kate, how about you.

Speaker 3 (01:40:28):
I think i'd give it too, on the grounds that
I think actually the only characters that really show any
deeper feeling other than like, I married this person because
they bang good were the gay characters, because like that,

(01:40:48):
the heartbreak of that funeral, I think is really poignant,
and I think it's sort of like it's revealed at
the same time it' suddenly revealed that these people were
in love, and I think that's quite I do think
that was probably quite a progressive thing to do for
that society in nineteen ninety four Britain, for sure, and
I think that is really good. And then the second nipple,

(01:41:11):
I think is for I just love the fact that
Annie McDowell got paid so much money to basically do
bugger all and I'm really here for that. And once
I knew that, I'm like, Okay, great work. I'd like
to see more. I'd like to see more representation of
people that don't seemingly have jobs, including the actors. I'd

(01:41:33):
like that. I want people to have money, zero work,
and that feels, you know, progressive and good and socialist.

Speaker 2 (01:41:40):
Maybe maybebe this is a socialist.

Speaker 3 (01:41:45):
It's actually a communist film, and it's hard to see
because they're all so posh and they're all like seemingly
landed gentry, but no one has a job.

Speaker 2 (01:41:57):
A communist movie about the bourgeois class.

Speaker 3 (01:42:01):
Yeah, kind of, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
Oh gosh, nipples.

Speaker 3 (01:42:07):
I think I would give it two nipples. Yeah, I
don't know. I love Scarlet's character. I think there's like,
there's so many characters in it that I do really enjoy.
They're not the main characters, but they feel minor to
this movie.

Speaker 5 (01:42:21):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:42:22):
Yeah, yeah, I will give my nipples to I don't know,
maybe Lydia for just getting with Bernard even though she's settled,
but he's really good and bad. It turns out so true.
I'm happy for her.

Speaker 2 (01:42:38):
We're happy for her.

Speaker 4 (01:42:40):
Oh yeah, well, Kate, thank you so much for joining us,
and sorry that we shit all over a movie that
the entire country lies.

Speaker 3 (01:42:50):
Yeah, we will be. I will be saying something to
the Home Office. I don't know who does our visas.

Speaker 2 (01:42:55):
But I guess Oh yeah, we're don't ban me. I
have to come watch Paddington the Musical again, although it
is coming to Broadway, so.

Speaker 3 (01:43:04):
Ah is it?

Speaker 5 (01:43:06):
It is?

Speaker 3 (01:43:07):
Paddington gets around.

Speaker 2 (01:43:09):
He's kind of like Andy McDowell's character in that way,
except Paddington is asexual.

Speaker 5 (01:43:14):
It's true, it's true.

Speaker 2 (01:43:16):
Kate. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 3 (01:43:18):
Thank you so much for having me come.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
Back any time and tell us about your fringe show
and lug anything else you want to.

Speaker 3 (01:43:25):
Plug bainly that comes. If you're an Edinburgh this summer
at the Fringe Festival, please come to my show. It's
at seventeen fifty five, that's five minutes to six at
the Voodoo Rooms.

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
Thank you for clarifying.

Speaker 3 (01:43:39):
And it's free and you can just walk in and come.
And it's about what it's like to be a good
time gal like Andy McDowell and a feminist during these times,
which are the apocalypse times, and how maybe I should
have been a chadwife instead, But I don't know. If
anything tells you that being a slash is good. It's

(01:44:00):
full weddings and a funeral, that's true.

Speaker 5 (01:44:04):
It's true.

Speaker 4 (01:44:05):
We'll always have four weddings in a funeral. Thank you
so much for trining us. I wish, I wish I
could see the show have a great run. I know
you always do.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
And then you can follow us on Instagram at Bechdel Cast.
You can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon, where for
five dollars a month you get two bonus episodes every month,
always based on an amazing genius theme, and then you
also get access to our back catalog of around two

(01:44:37):
hundred bonus episodes. What a bargain, truly.

Speaker 4 (01:44:42):
And with that, let's go get married or die?

Speaker 2 (01:44:46):
Sounds great?

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
Two options?

Speaker 2 (01:44:49):
Bye bye, bye bye.

Speaker 4 (01:44:54):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted and
produced by me Jamie Loft and me Kitlyn Durrante.

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
The podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichtermann.

Speaker 5 (01:45:05):
And edited by Caitlyn Durrante. Ever heard of Them?

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):
That's me? And our logo and merch and all of
our artwork, in fact, are designed by Jamie Loftus ever
heard of her? Oh My God?

Speaker 4 (01:45:17):
And our theme song, by the way, was composed by
Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 2 (01:45:21):
With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 4 (01:45:23):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:45:28):
For more information about the podcast, please visit Linktree Slash
Spectel Cast

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

The Bechdel Cast News

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Caitlin Durante

Jamie Loftus

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Betrayal Weekly

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Four Weddings and a Funeral with Kate Cheka