Not as good the second time around

Rating: 7/10 (9 June 1999)

Perhaps it is unfair to compare this film to FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL, even though the writer and star of that film(Richard Curtis and Hugh Grant) have re-teamed for a similarly-themed romantic comedy(English man falls for American beauty who may be out of his league). And I don't think Grant has played the same the same character over and over again(there's not much in common between his roles in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, SIRENS, and EXTREME MEASURES, for example, not to mention AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE). But he certainly does a carbon copy of his performance in FOUR WEDDINGS here. Worse, while he was able to display a range of emotions in that film, and even get in on some of the film's funny bits(the best man speech), here, the only emotion he's allowed to display is wistfulness, and a little of that goes a long way. You just wish that he'd get angry once.
Julia Roberts fares a little better, though she's underplaying as if she expected she'd have something much more raucous to play against. She of course is playing someone who has to have a facade on at all times, but she does get to show other facets, like petulance(when the others around her are saying how miserable their lives are, and she feels left out), humor(when she shows up a group of diners talking about her as if she was a whore), and anger(when the press shows up outside Grant's door). Still, I wish the satire on movie stars' lives had been more pronounced; what's there is good(the press junkets, the discussion of stunt bottoms), but I was left hungry for more.
Oddly enough, the most blatant copy of FOUR WEDDINGS - the friends Grant has - is the part which worked best for me, because at least the people their had personalities to express, and they never let the sentimentality get too heavy(when one of them is in a wheelchair, you prepare for the worst, but Emma Chambers(I think she's the actress) deflects that by never playing for pathos). Also, Rhys Ifans steals the movie, and it sorely needs him. Overall, not bad, but could have been better.