Peter's Friends

1992 "Love, friendship, and other natural disasters..."
7| 1h41m| R| en| More Info
Released: 18 September 1992 Released
Producted By: Samuel Goldwyn Company
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter invites his friends from college: married couple Roger and Mary, the lonely Maggie, fashionable Sarah, and writer Andrew, who brings his American TV star wife, Carol. Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian, also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

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FlashCallahan Seven friends from an acting troupe graduate from Cambridge University in 1982 and go their separate ways. Ten years later, Peter inherits a large estate from his father, and invites the rest of the gang to spend New Year's holiday with him. Many changes have taken place in the lives of all the friends assembled, but Peter has a secret to tell......Luvvie Alert!!!!!!!!!Depending on your age and your appreciation of British TV in the late eighties and early nineties will swerve on your opinion of this film.Basically, if you like A Bit Of Fry And Laurie, Blackadder, Who's Line Is It Anyway, The Tall Guy, and any Sitcom that featured a middle class family, person, or Business,methane this is the movie for you.If you said no to the above, then you mat find this a little bit snobby, and a little bit too smug for its own good. In fact, it should have been called Kenneth's Friends, because the film could almost be a metaphorical fly on the wall documentary about our favourite British actors.But it's comfort food for fans, just to see the actors enjoying themselves and bouncing off one another. After not seeing it for so many years, it's surprising as just to how somber the film is at times.As well as the film subliminally congratulating the stars for their input into the British Arts, it deals with infidelity, morbidity, loss, age, and self realisation, and it deals with them marvellously.The cast, as you'd expect, are wondrous, and the chemistry in the film is perfect. My only qualm with the film is that whilst it deals with life changing issues delicately with three of the characters, the other characters problems seem simply trivial compared to those. So while the loss of a child is treated as you'd expect it to be treated, suicide is joked about early on and cast aside.But all in all, it's a fun love in for all concerned, but it's definitely an acquired taste.I can't wait for the directors cut that has Alan Rickman turn up late, with a silly story and a slight problem.
Marta I love a lot of the actors in this film, so it's difficult for me to do an objective review but I'll try. The plot is by no means a new one - old university friends get together 10 years later and talk a lot about their lives and how they have not become the persons they thought they would. More or less. Normally I am fascinated by this theme but somehow the film never really made me feel anything towards the main characters besides indifference. None of the postulated "problems"were ever really addressed, but this could be the point of the film, so I won't say it's an entirely negative thing. the fact remains that none of the main characters seem more than 2-dimensional. Generally the film feels more like a play than a film but without the freshness of a live performance. It feels like going to the 700th performance of a play where the actors all know their part really really well and have started to grow bored with it. In short: If you want to watch a young Hugh Laurie/Emma Thomson etc. this is definitely a must see. If you want to watch a film about growing up and facing the fact that a lot of your dreams are actually fantasies, watch Third Star, Reallity Bites or maybe Before Sunrise instead.
laurel21000 I hated this film. And then when I was through hating it, I began to loathe it. My last ounce of strength left over from loathing it was consumed in despising it.This film is so bad. It is coarse. It is stupid. It is coarsely stupid and stupidly coarse.It's beyond bewildering, in fact it is unfathomable as to why Rita Rudner would write such an awful showcase for herself.I've heard some of her standup comedy.Her standup was funny.This film was not.
Richard Stanford You won't find a laugh track. Or even any side-splitting laughs. Its not slapstick, indeed most of the humor is directed ironically at the character who's making the self-deprecating comment. Its not really tragic - its a situation comedy of the old school, with great actors, a reasonable framework for them to perform, and no artificial beginning or ending, just characterization. Like many movies of this kind, you have to bring your brain along and do some of the work yourself. It is, however, an effort that will be greatly rewarded, and highly rewarding. So find the movie, watch it, think about it, and enjoy it. You'll probably continue to do so through many viewings.And while its not out on DVD in the US, it available out on laserdisc (if anyone still has one - I did for many years). Not much, but its something.