If you're making a movie about a wedding at an English country house with a cast of conflicted and sometimes eccentric characters upstairs and downstairs set in 1932, then there are two words that cannot be avoided: Downton Abbey.
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For Donald Rice, the filmmaker whose debut feature, the deft English romantic comedy Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, is that very movie, the initial resemblance to the popular television series is something to be used instead of being denied. When Cheerful Weather for the Wedding was released in Britain in January, it was marketed via the third season DVD of Downton Abbey, offering a substitute for those desiring a further fix of impeccable manners, droll quips and tortured secrets.
''You get people who want to bracket all period stuff together, but period can be anything from Braveheart to A Room with a View,'' Rice notes.
''It's a massive generalisation to refer to something as 'period'. Cheerful is quite distinct, but there's an overlap in audiences with Downton.''
Adapted from Julia Strachey's 1932 novella, the film charts the wedding of Dolly (Felicity Jones). Despite her mother's (Downton Abbey's Elizabeth McGovern) careful planning, the day becomes complicated by the arrival of Dolly's former lover, Joseph (Luke Treadaway), looking to change her mind even as mismatched strands of family and friends mingle together. Rice's version starts at a brisk comic pace, but ends in melancholy.
''We've probably exasperated a few people because there are a lot of period fans out there who expect drama followed by a happy ending, but one of the things that was exciting about the book was that it felt modern,'' Rice explains. ''The relationship between Dolly and Joseph felt very contemporary and we wanted to maintain that. It's a love story that happens to be set in 1932.''
For Rice, whose father Tim was the lyricist to Andrew Lloyd Webber's composer on the likes of Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, the film was a struggle to make. The budget was approximately $1 million, and it took the commitment of rising star Jones (Like Crazy, Hysteria) to raise even that.
''She's the Helen Mirren of her generation,'' Rice says of Jones. ''She absolutely knew Dolly … the cast collectively had far more experience than I did. I was very nervous about working with them. I never thought Felicity was in safe hands with me - I was always in safe hands with her.''
Cheerful Weather for a Wedding
Genre English country-house romantic comedy
Critical buzz Downton Abbey meets The Philadelphia Story in a chaotic wedding day.
Stars Felicity Jones, Elizabeth McGovern, Luke Treadaway, Ellie Kendrick
Director Donald Rice
Rated PG
Release Now screening
