Review

Review Date: 19-August-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

Death at a Funeral (2007)

As genres go, the philosophical comedy is definitely one where you need a specific mindset to embrace it. You need to believe, or want to believe, that the human experience is a crazy ride at which we must laugh so as not to cry. Me, I fail to find such comedy convincing because the situations are too exaggerated to stand for real life, and while they may seem amusing when happening to characters in a movie, they would be nightmarish if they happened to you.

Thus I came away from "Death at a Funeral" without acceptance of its theme but with a modest respect for its execution. Undeniable humor arises when straight-faced British people act like utter dingbats. Here, the bedlam swirls around the dutiful son (Matthew MacFadyen) of a deceased man whose family is gathering for their final good-byes. With his pale and unusual handsomeness (he is a cross between John Cusack and Brent Spiner), MacFadyen is the very picture of the chap who has always taken the safe route and suffered because of it. His suffering comes to a head as his wife pressures him about moving on after the funeral and all the guests wonder why he is going to deliver the eulogy instead of his hot shot, famous-author brother (Rupert Graves).

Of course everybody in the family has crosses to bear and lessons to learn. One cousin (Daisy Donovan) arrives with the boyfriend (Alan Tudyk) whom her father hates and spends the afternoon defending her heart's choice while protecting her beau from harm. (He has accidentally dropped acid — the first but not last character to do so — which leads me to wonder just how many idiots would use pills, prescription or otherwise, which they found lying around someone's house or lawn.) A nerdy, hypochondriac friend of the family (Andy Nyman) gets stuck taking care of a crotchety old uncle (Peter Vaughan), which eventually involves toilet duty. Other folks say inappropriate things and get in the way.

But the biggest shock of the day comes when the mysterious dwarf whom nobody recognizes (Peter Dinklage) takes the dutiful son aside and reveals that he was the departed's gay lover. And he has photos to prove it. All hell breaks loose at this pronouncement and continues right up to the anticipated eulogy. At the peak of the crisis MacFadyen calls up words which make everything all right and allow everyone to go forth with a better shot at happiness. These convey the genre's message about faith within the freak show. When taken with the preceding folly, their beauty is squarely in the beholder's eye.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.