SnoopyStyle In 1982, six college friends perform a review in front of a bored audience. Ten years later, they reunite for New Years weekend after Peter Morton (Stephen Fry) inherits the family country manor. Andrew Benson (Kenneth Branagh) is a Hollywood writer married to successful American actress Carol (Rita Rudner). Mary (Imelda Staunton) and Roger Charleston (Hugh Laurie) are married jingle writers. Maggie Chester (Emma Thompson) is a single cat lady and publisher. Sarah Johnson is a fashion designer coming with married Brian.The easy comparison is The Big Chill. Branagh brings together his friends and colleagues. Rita Rudner doesn't seem right as an acting diva. I'm surprised that Branagh couldn't get a bigger name for the role. A California blonde would be much better for the contrast. The characters are obvious and broadly drawn. Once the characters are presented, the story doesn't really go too far. There was a fresh energy about The Big Chill but this goes over like a cold rainy English day. The great cast does keep the interest high throughout.

bootlebarth Cambridge University is one of the best in the world. Some of its alumni show off in the Footlights and later drift into show business: Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Tony Slattery, etc.They make shows and films that might be of intense interest to their narcissistic selves, often showing their true colours while pretending them to be comic, satiric, or whatever.Peter (Stephen Fry) is - yawn - rich, thanks to his recently deceased father. He invites a small group of old chums, and their partners, to his pile for a New Year party. All are semi-nutters, including some out of touch for four years. None are even slightly interesting.The so-called humour is laboured. Only the most easily pleased viewer will crack the faintest of smiles in nearly two hours.Naturally there are complications. Friend Sarah, a token pigmented person with a disastrous romantic history, has bonked two of the small party in the past, including presently celibate, formerly bisexual and - shock late announcement - HIV positive Peter. Her latest amour is an impossible character played horribly by Tony Slattery, for which he deserves a Golden Raspberry award.The supposedly intelligent and successful people of Peter's Friends are wholly incapable of leading ordered lives. Is this really how Fry, Branagh and company see themselves? The only sympathetic character is Vera the housekeeper, who announces her departure towards the end - but not before some absurd scenes involving her wood-chopping son, including a chatting-up by Sarah and a woman-on-top bonk with Emma Thompson.Branagh's representation of a drunk was certainly not a performance that contributed to his later knighthood.Peter's Friends is a film, full of luvvies pretending to poke fun at themselves, but obviously without believing a word of it, and hoping to earn enough from it to keep them in the style they think their superior intelligence deserves. Awful.

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.

Rick Austin Dear IMDb, Here is an excerpt of the first draft of my proposed sequel, "Who Cares About You And Your Snotty, Self-Possessed Friends Anyway, Peter?"Kenneth Brannagh (smiling coyly)Isn't my life just so terribly interesting that the world would line up to see a thinly-veiled fictionalization of it?The World (yawns)Not particularly, no.This movie is the very definition of "vanity project" by a pretentious actor-director who's canon of work seems meant to bring "culture" back to mainstream cinema but always does so in a heavy-handed fashion. Kenneth, I am sure you and your real friends are oh-so charming as you sit around your country estate sipping wine and saying clever things, but please don't make the rest of us sit and watch it.