Peter's Friends – Freunde sind die besten Feinde (1992)

Peter’s Friends – Freunde sind die besten Feinde: Directed by Kenneth Branagh. With Hugh Laurie, Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Fry, Alphonsia Emmanuel. Six former college friends, with two new friends, gather for a New Year’s Eve weekend reunion at a large English countryside manor after ten years to reminisce about the good times now long gone.

“Good, solid drama in the best British style, replete with witty dialogues, more or less a showcase for Kenneth Branagh to bestow upon us something that is not in the least Shakespearian. Nicely-paced development lets the principal characters ease their way into the proceedings in an orchestrated way, such that there is a fine balance in screen presence as well as in the interwoven combinations of the players from scene to scene, very much in the straight theatre tradition. Therein lies a possible weakness: the film has a straight-jacket feel to it, as though indeed it was too severely and strictly transposed from the stage to the screen.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eVery much in the vein of a `battle of the sexesu0026#39;, we have in `Peteru0026#39;s Friendsu0026#39; several couples meeting some years after graduating, supposedly to remember old times. I rather fancy that the ladies win this battle by a slight margin, as the performances by Imelda Staunton, Emma Thompson and Alphonsia Emmanuel manage to pull off a finely-tuned upper-hand over the gentlemen. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThis is about the third time I have seen this film – and will doubtlessly see it again. However, having recently seen `Gosford Parku0026#39; a couple of times, I cannot help marrying up the two films – and thus falling into the trap of comparing them. `Gosford Parku0026#39; comes out clearly the winner: Altmanu0026#39;s masterpiece.”