Roush Review: ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’s Rom-Com Clichés Fail to Charm

Hold the rice. Something has gone seriously amiss when a romantic comedy fails to charm or amuse to such a degree that you pine for four (or more) funerals and not the “I dos.”

Such, sadly, is the case with Four Weddings and a Funeral, a misbegotten attempt by Mindy Kaling and Matt Warburton (The Mindy Project) to replicate Richard Curtis’ frothy tangled-affairs-of-the-heart formula popularized in the 1994 movie and, later, Notting Hill and Love, Actually.

Most everything falls flat, starting with the bland central performance of Game of Thrones‘ Nathalie Emmanuel as the unaccountably smug Maya.

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She’s introduced as an unrepentant home-wrecker before reuniting with three annoying American college pals in London: a nerdy would-be author (Search Party‘s John Reynolds) carrying a torch for her, a narcissistic man-child (Brandon Mychal Smith) and a spoiled BFF (Rebecca Rittenhouse) whose fiancé (Nikesh Patel) is instantly smitten with Maya in a meet-cute with predictable consequences.

Even if you’re a sucker for rom-com clichés — declaration of love in the pouring rain, check — this cloying and clumsy rehash may harden your heart.

Four Weddings and a Funeral, Series Premiere, Wendesday, July 31, Hulu

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