Peter's Friends

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Peter's Friends

R,

1992,

1h 40m,

Comedy/

LGBTQ+

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Watchlist

65%

37 Reviews

Tomatometer

77%

5,000+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

65%

Tomatometer

37 Reviews

77%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter (Stephen Fry) invites his friends from college: married couple Roger (Hugh Laurie) and Mary (Imelda Staunton), the lonely Maggie (Emma Thompson), fashionable Sarah (Alphonsia Emmanuel) and writer Andrew (Kenneth Branagh), who brings his American TV star wife, Carol (Rita Rudner). Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian (Tony Slattery), also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

Neil Jillett

The Age (Australia)

Apr 13, 2022

There are some amusing scenes built around the splattering of smart gags, but this is a comedy that always finds bathos when it hunts for pathos, and seems powered by desperation rather than energy.

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Tom Ryan

The Age (Australia)

Apr 13, 2022

0/3

There are some funny lines In Peter's Friends, but the film amounts to little more than a collection of broadly drawn sketches In search of a structure.

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David Ansen

Newsweek

May 25, 2018

The clever, facile Peter's Friends doesn't bear much scrutiny, and its attempts at pathos are more opportunistic than earned. Still, Branagh knows how to put on a lively show.

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Kat Halstead

Common Sense Media

Mar 15, 2023

3/5

There are funny moments, tender moments, and moments that don't quite gel. But the decades-long connection at the heart is tenderly played and anchors the surrounding chaos right through to the final scene.

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Ed Whitfield

The Ooh Tray

Mar 29, 2020

What felt sincere and reassuring in 1992, seems indulgent and stilted today.

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Vanessa Letts

The Spectator

Jul 25, 2018

Anyone else who is going to require a bit of preparatory jollying up should probably avoid this production.

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Finn R

Feb 23, 2019

A film to watch and remember your own friends before they grew into their grown-up lives! Often scorned because it is set amongst the non-poor - the characters will remind you of someone tou knew. It's a script firmly set in the times it displays - the eighties. Glittering dreams of love have gone sour and for Emma Thomson's character, even flown away forever. However, stay for the witty Rita Rudner's point of view of the mess our lives become without much effort. She wrote with her husband, and they merely had to look around for wealthy not-so-young things and copy down their lives, stick them in a lovely English manor and wait. Their problems are serious yet deftly layered with Kenneth Brannaugh's light directional touch. It has the rollicking pace of the more innocent wealth-fest Four Weddings and a Funeral - you'll expect Hugh Grant to appear in his bow tie. But it swoops into the sadness of Love Actually in a mere moment. It's a story of friends well told.

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Kenneth Branagh

Director

Kenneth Branagh

Andrew Benson

Emma Thompson

Maggie Chester

Stephen Fry

Peter Morton

Alphonsia Emmanuel

Sarah Johnson

Hugh Laurie

Roger Charleston

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Synopsis

After inheriting a large country estate from his late father, Peter (Stephen Fry) invites his friends from college: married couple Roger (Hugh Laurie) and Mary (Imelda Staunton), the lonely Maggie (Emma Thompson), fashionable Sarah (Alphonsia Emmanuel) and writer Andrew (Kenneth Branagh), who brings his American TV star wife, Carol (Rita Rudner). Sarah's new boyfriend, Brian (Tony Slattery), also attends. It has been 10 years since college, and they find their lives are very different.

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Production Co: The Samuel Goldwyn Company, Renaissance Films, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Channel Four Films
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, LGBTQ+
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): May 1, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA): $4.1M
Runtime: 1h 40m
Sound Mix: Surround, Stereo

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