Peter`s Friends (UK)

Appreciate the main review`s warning about the disc quality. Fortunately, and no disrespect intended to the reviewer`s partner, from memories of the initial release I would have to say "lifeless, dull and two dimensional" was pretty much how the film struck me anyway. It may have been ill-served by the distributor, but I still found it difficult to empathise at all with the emotional histrionics of a collection of over-wrought, over-privileged Oxbridge luvvies. Without giving too much away, the plot takes in some very upper-middle-class life issues and eventually pivots on a very media-centric disease-du-jour. Ultimately it`s like being asked to sympathise with the losing team on University Challenge. Why would you even want to watch to know who lost anyway?

Note by DanB, DVD Reviewer
I fully appreciate that enjoying a film is a totally subjective thing, and you are entitled to your views. However, I think I`m on safe ground when I say that homosexuality, alcoholism, emotional rejection and grief are life issues which are not simply restricted solely to the "very upper-middle-class".

Note by SteveGough, 1st-time contributor

From art to life, from films to web-sites, pleasure and quality in all things are subjective. Some people look at Eastenders and see a mirror image of their lives, others see a gloomy, dismally written and badly acted TV show. And isn`t it funny how subjectively a phrase like "with all due respect" or "you are entitled to your views" will often seem like the feint before a punchline that suggests the exact opposite? My views and I are grateful for your tolerance, and feel suitably patronised. I offer this alternate insight:

You may find it as difficult as I did to empathise with the characters in this toffs-in-tweeds take on "The Big Chill". A reunion of Oxbridge revue veterans brings to light a series-worth of soap opera crises. The line between reality and the fictional lives of the characters blurs with the leads taken by Oxbridge revue veterans Fry, Laurie, Thompson and Branagh. A simple case of over-egging the pudding, there were too many cut-glass accents among the oak-panels, four-posters and antique antimacassars of the eponymous Peter`s stately home to strike a sympathetic chord at the heart of an Essex housing estate. The ending trades on what was at the time a media hot potato, the still-fresh spectre of the so-called gay plague. Its effectiveness really depends on the empathy the viewer has developed with the characters. Not to give too much away, Ken and Emma eventually split up.

... or was that just in the film?