Product Details

• Actors: Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh, Alphonsia Emmanuel
• Directors: Kenneth Branagh
• Writers: Rita Rudner, Martin Bergman
• Producers: Kenneth Branagh, David Parfitt, Martin Bergman, Stephen Evans
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 101 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302767741
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,462 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

What if you could go back to your glory days? Peter's Friends, sort of The Big Chill reconceived as an Agatha Christie country-estate drama, lets a group of university pals ponder that question while they must deal with their present-day demons. Kenneth Branagh's film, written by costar Rita Rudner and Martin Bergman, is buoyed by its vast and talented cast, whose chemistry keeps the action crackling, even when most of the action is the characters speaking. The friends are reunited at Peter's posh country home after the death of his father, for one last New Year's Eve. The bons mots fly, and the interaction of the actors is, as the Brits say, brilliant. Peter (played by the sublime Stephen Fry): "It's funny, with both my parents gone, I suddenly have this overwhelming urge to act maturely." Andrew (Branagh): "Oh, well, I don't think anybody really matures. Adults are just children who owe money." Yet buried among the one-liners and drawing-room manners are disappointment, heartbreak, and a heavy secret (which, many years after the film's original 1992 release, doesn't pack the same wallop). Emma Thompson shows nuance and delight as Maggie while Hugh Laurie shows his dramatic capabilities. Other winning performances are given by Imelda Staunton and Tony Slattery. The setting is an absolute stunner, and viewers will wish they could spend a holiday at the manor. And the soundtrack will transport them to a sweeter time in the early '80s, when "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." Cozy up for a delightfully unexpected evening with these Friends. --A.T. Hurley

Product Description

Friends for ten years, they gather together one New Year's Eve weekend to share laughter, tears, sex, no sex, old friendships and new discoveries, all the while making absolute fools of themselves.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great movie is hard to find, but I found one!, January 28, 2001

By 

Haley Anne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Peter's Friends [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A truly touching film about 6 friends (not exactly Friends), this independant from 1992 film won my heart. With a brilliant opening scene, and the credits traveling from the last time they were all together in 1982 (with political break throughs and famous people littering the screne set to the great Tears for Fears tune "Everybody Wants to Rule the World") and a brilliant story line, Peter's Friends is once of the best independant films out there. Directed and acted by the great British Kenneth Branaugh with Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry as Peter, and Imelda Staunton, it's no wonder this is such a terrific flick.

Set on New Year's Eve, 1992, each person comes to Peter's estate for one last new years in his house, since Peter's father died. It has been 10 years since they had all been together, performing a small cabaret show to anyone who would actually want them there to perform. Now, all the friends have been married, movied away, or in destructive (or no) relationships. During the course of the weekend, they all rediscover one another as well as discover who they are. With an pwerful script, setting, and cast of characters, Peter's Friends is one of the best. I completely recommend you see it and enjoy yourselves. It's brilliant, so have fun!!!

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An honest, touching movie about friendship, and being human, August 16, 2000

By 

Earl Hazell (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Peter's Friends [VHS] (VHS Tape)

How often do you see a movie in which women are acknowledging how their egos, denied feelings, self-destructive behaviors and deep lonliness are making them obliterate their relationships before the men in their lives ever have a chance to? And how often do you see that without the kind of heavy handed comedy that is usually designed as a secret apology for doing anything but infantilizing women via romance and triumph over victimization?

That alone makes the movie worth seeing. The men and women in this film are going through a lot of stuff, not the least of which wishing they could go back to the time when life seemed to make sense- when they were all together and much closer as friends. But they can only move forward: they can only accept the degree to which they are products of their environment, and how that degree is much smaller than what they would like to believe- in fact, to what degree they constructed their environments through their choices in life. One couple, married, still grieving the death of a child, must face the anger at each other and themselves- and God- before it destroys their marriage like a cancer; and the husband leads the way. One woman must face how she manipulates men into severing their relationships with other women for her, only to blow them off dazed and brokenhearted when there is nothing left to stand in the way of her committing herself to them, including their old lives. Another must come to terms with his sexuality enough to share it with his friends, one of which has fallen in love with him, for all the wrong reasons. The comedy in this film is there by necessity I think moreso than artifice or decoration; if you don't laugh at times at how confusing and hard life can be you can't live it. It balances out the transformation each character must go through in order to get on with their lives, and be true to the friendships they have reestablished that they owe so much joy and revalation to.

The acting in this movie is wonderful, and through it all, there are some pretty funny scenes. The movie as a whole though can have the effect of having your soul scrubbed with a scouring pad if you see yourself or any life experience reflected in the characters. And if you think you can relate to anyone of them, or think you know someone who is like one of them, you probably will.

A very special movie. Don't rent it for a group of friends, unless you're prepared to go through a similiar roller coaster- and then be closer to them all then you ever have been before.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best movie I've seen in years., July 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Peter's Friends [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was totally appalled to read some of the negative reviews of this marvellous movie. I hate to say this, but it helps to be British to understand and appreciate the clever, quick humour, and to be able to relate to this group of college chums -- all of whom, I might add, were perfectly cast in their roles. You could go to any stately home in Britain today and find an identical assortment of friends behaving in exactly the same way. As we are fond of saying in England, it was "spot on" -- wonderfully funny,poignant,yet excrutiatingly sad at the end. Oh, and the background music was terrific!