Why do you have to ‘Peter’s Friends’ by Kenneth Branagh this holiday season?

End of the year nights we have lived many in fiction. A meeting of friends like any at the end of the year. Peter, that beacon of light and hope among the bitterness and hardships of that group of colleagues. Intimate friends in their youth, now in that celebration they will see that the years weigh heavily, that they bring worries and sometimes misfortunes. It is what it takes to add years. The lyrics of the song predict it Everybody wants to rule the world, which sounds with the credits. Luckily friendship remains. Kenneth branagh premiered in 1992 an intimate story that had Emma thompson (Maggie), Hugh Laurie (Roger), Stephen Fry (Pedro), Alphonsia Emmanuel (Sarah), Phyllida Law (Vera), Rita Rudner (Carol), Imelda Staunton (Mary) and Tony slattery (Brian) among others. Discover this movie so sui generis within the genre of Christmas ribbons.

Synopsis

Peter invites his best friends – Maggie, Roger, Mary, Andrew and Sarah – whom he has not seen for years to celebrate New Year’s Eve at his grand mansion. During the stay, in which they are accompanied by Carol, Andrew’s wife and Brian, Sarah’s boyfriend. Friends will have fun, they will remember the good old days of years ago… And soon all their problems, their frustrations, their fears, their unfulfilled dreams and their unhappiness will come to light. But nobody knows how that party is going to end and how they are going to get into 1993. Well, one yes: Peter himself.

director

Kenneth branagh premiered in 1992 his third feature film. Behind the camera he has covered Shakespeare as ‘Hamlet’ or ‘Much ado about nothing’. He has combined his work as an actor, for example under Christopher Nolan in ‘Tenet’ and in ‘Dunkerque’. He was in charge of the 2011 ‘Thor’ and making the live action from Disney’s ‘Cinderella’ in 2015. After ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, it will premiere in January 2022 ‘Belfast’ and ‘Death on the Nile’, two of the films that will arrive in 2022.

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Reception

The film was well received by the majority of critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 69%, while on IMDb it comes in at just 7. The Washington Post commented that it was “an entertaining but modest job (…) It borrows from Shakespeare’s romantic comedies, French farces and American sitcoms“. Branagh’s work even received a Goya Award nomination. ‘Three Colors: Blue’ won the award by beating Peter and his friends, as well as ‘Game of tears’, by Neil Jordan. Over time, ‘Peter’s Friends’ has lost popularity compared to other films by the filmmaker.

Peter’s friends

Anecdotes

The film will not be the director’s most famous, but surely its cast will sound like other productions much more conventional.

Mother and daughter: Phyllida Law, the actress who plays the housekeeper is Emma Thompson’s mother in real life. He has participated on several occasions with his daughter, as in ‘Much ado about nothing’, under the command of Branagh or ‘The winter guest’. Thompson and the filmmaker were precisely married at this time. They divorced in 1995.

Peter’s friends

In the Harry Potter saga: Like almost all British interpreters, several of the actors in this film have been seen in the great saga. Thompson played Professor Trelawney, a Divination teacher. Branagh played Gilderoy Lockhart, the Defense Against the Dark Arts class at Hogwarts in “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.” Imelda Staunton is perhaps the most recognized within the Potter Universe, given that she has been Dolores Umbridge, also one of the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor and one of the most hated people within the saga.

Peter’s friends

Outside of great sagas and within television, Hugh Laurie still had twelve years left to become the protagonist of ‘House’.

Character

No one could be singled out other than Peter, the soul of that meeting. He is the host, and also represents kindness, togetherness. Ross Geller in a chapter of Friends was denominated like “the glue” of the group. In all groups of friends there is such a member, one who watches over the unity of the group. This is Peter.

Peter’s friends

It is interesting to highlight the group as the protagonist: in the groups of colleagues there are roles assigned inadvertently to each member: there is the playboy or flirt, which Sarah has here (how positive that she is a woman and not a man as is usual in this category ), one who wants to be noticed a lot (Andrew), another who wants to go unnoticed (Maggie), the serious one (Roger), the one who tells the truth (Mary). And the one who, like Stephen Fry’s character, that good guy named Peter, who represents hope.

The scene

The outcome, with everyone dancing (and tranquility in case it is not seen, that this is not a spoiler).

Peter’s friends

The phrase

As soon as the plot starts, the protagonist’s voice is heard saying something. After all, that’s what the movie is about, friendship

There are friends that you know are for life. You are firmly united by love, trust, respect, or loss. Or in our case, simply out of embarrassment.

To whom?

For those people who defend true friendship, for those who have not seen their colleagues for a long time or for those who have made the gross mistake of having sacrificed friendships in pairs.

Do youWhere you can see?

‘Peter’s Friends’ is available on Filmin.

2021 Advent Calendar of Frames

Frames

Day 1: ‘Love Actually’

Day 2: ‘Alone at Home’

Day 3: ‘Little Women’

Day 4: ‘The day of the beast’

Day 5: ‘Peter’s friends’

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