Bizarre, unabashedly black comedy chronicles a dysfunctional British family mourning the death of their patriarch. Well, they try to, anyway. Family tensions give way to total chaos with the arrival of a mysterious dwarf blackmailer, Hallucinogens accidentally passed around, and Uncle Alfie, an obnoxious foul-mouthed old man.
In the beginning, we are introduced to a whole host of strange characters. There's a slightly hypochondriac man, obsessed with a pigment mutation on his hand. There's a guy who's a successful novelist and his writer wanna-be brother. Well, I'm not going to rattle off every single person in the movie. I can't remember most of their names, actually.
The most normal people in the bunch are a woman named Martha and her quiet fiance' (Alan Tudyk.) Before they arrive at the funeral, they stop at a relatives place. Simon is stressed out, and Martha gives him a dose of Valium to calm his nerves. What they don't know is, it's not Valium. The owner of the bottle is a drug addict, and it's actually a Hallucinogenic concoction. Unfortunately, the drug goes straight to Simon's head and, sure enough, he begin behaving strangely and seeing things.
Simon is already disliked by the deceased's brother, Martha's father, for unknown reasons. Apparently, though, showing affection towards rooster garden ornaments and stumbling around in a drug-induced haze doesn't do much for your popularity. Things get worse when Simon sees something 'moving' inside the coffin and knocks it to the ground, spilling the body and sending the dead man's wife into tears.
The not-so-successful guy, who's busy writing the eulogy his friends want his brother to do, is surprised to see a strange dwarf standing by the table. Well, I'd hesitate to spoil this, but the preview will divulge it anyway. The unnamed dwarf takes takes him aside and shows him a pack of pictures of the small man and his dad together. Professing that they were good friends, he flips through the multiple photos of the two together.
The son is confused that he has never seen or heard of the dwarf, being that they were apparently close. The truth, however, comes out with the last picture. This one is a graphic shot of dad and the dwarf in an- um- compromising position. As if finding out your dad had an alternate lifestyle that he shared with a little person wasn't enough, he is informed that if the dwarf isn't given some of the will, the photos will be shown to the entire family, shocking them and traumatizing his mourning mother.
So you thought family had issues? The son is already having financial problems, so he is less than happy to hand the money over. However, he is even less keen on driving his mum to an early grave. So he asks his brother for help, and they try to come up with a way to make the guy leave.
Meanwhile, Simon has barricaded in the upstairs bathroom playing with tissue and his fiance', trying to get him to come out, is being leered at by a creepy guy she once had a one-night stand with. Wheelchair-bound Alfie's toilet problems only complicate things. To put it simply, pretty much everything that can happen does. The film's events tell the story of possibly one of the most chaotic, awful funerals in the history of cinema.
Make no mistake- this film's preview makes it look far inferior to the actual result. Though not without it's flaws, "Death at a Funeral" is funnier than many films I've seen this year. It's lines and timing were often hilarious. Sometimes, however, I felt they went too far in the humor's dark weirdness. At some points, I was close to being offended, and found little entertainment in the increasingly sick situations that were playing out.
Also, Alan Tudyk appears to get most of the great lines . Even though the wanna-be writer's beginning of his eulogy- "it seems that my father has more friends now that he's dead than when he was alive-' is somewhat funny by itself, it is Simon's grossly inappropriate reaction (hysterical laughing) that really drives the joke home. Simon, in fact, has so many funny parts you feel the directer should share the wealth a bit.
My new philosophy, though, is this- don't rag on a movie that makes me laugh as hard as this one did. Fans of dark humor will probably like it even more than me. This is definitely one of those movies that exceeded and soared beyond my original expectations. (Rated R)
Recommendation- Another high-speed farce you can see concerning myriad disasters befalling a family during a gathering is Only Human
In the beginning, we are introduced to a whole host of strange characters. There's a slightly hypochondriac man, obsessed with a pigment mutation on his hand. There's a guy who's a successful novelist and his writer wanna-be brother. Well, I'm not going to rattle off every single person in the movie. I can't remember most of their names, actually.
The most normal people in the bunch are a woman named Martha and her quiet fiance' (Alan Tudyk.) Before they arrive at the funeral, they stop at a relatives place. Simon is stressed out, and Martha gives him a dose of Valium to calm his nerves. What they don't know is, it's not Valium. The owner of the bottle is a drug addict, and it's actually a Hallucinogenic concoction. Unfortunately, the drug goes straight to Simon's head and, sure enough, he begin behaving strangely and seeing things.
Simon is already disliked by the deceased's brother, Martha's father, for unknown reasons. Apparently, though, showing affection towards rooster garden ornaments and stumbling around in a drug-induced haze doesn't do much for your popularity. Things get worse when Simon sees something 'moving' inside the coffin and knocks it to the ground, spilling the body and sending the dead man's wife into tears.
The not-so-successful guy, who's busy writing the eulogy his friends want his brother to do, is surprised to see a strange dwarf standing by the table. Well, I'd hesitate to spoil this, but the preview will divulge it anyway. The unnamed dwarf takes takes him aside and shows him a pack of pictures of the small man and his dad together. Professing that they were good friends, he flips through the multiple photos of the two together.
The son is confused that he has never seen or heard of the dwarf, being that they were apparently close. The truth, however, comes out with the last picture. This one is a graphic shot of dad and the dwarf in an- um- compromising position. As if finding out your dad had an alternate lifestyle that he shared with a little person wasn't enough, he is informed that if the dwarf isn't given some of the will, the photos will be shown to the entire family, shocking them and traumatizing his mourning mother.
So you thought family had issues? The son is already having financial problems, so he is less than happy to hand the money over. However, he is even less keen on driving his mum to an early grave. So he asks his brother for help, and they try to come up with a way to make the guy leave.
Meanwhile, Simon has barricaded in the upstairs bathroom playing with tissue and his fiance', trying to get him to come out, is being leered at by a creepy guy she once had a one-night stand with. Wheelchair-bound Alfie's toilet problems only complicate things. To put it simply, pretty much everything that can happen does. The film's events tell the story of possibly one of the most chaotic, awful funerals in the history of cinema.
Make no mistake- this film's preview makes it look far inferior to the actual result. Though not without it's flaws, "Death at a Funeral" is funnier than many films I've seen this year. It's lines and timing were often hilarious. Sometimes, however, I felt they went too far in the humor's dark weirdness. At some points, I was close to being offended, and found little entertainment in the increasingly sick situations that were playing out.
Also, Alan Tudyk appears to get most of the great lines . Even though the wanna-be writer's beginning of his eulogy- "it seems that my father has more friends now that he's dead than when he was alive-' is somewhat funny by itself, it is Simon's grossly inappropriate reaction (hysterical laughing) that really drives the joke home. Simon, in fact, has so many funny parts you feel the directer should share the wealth a bit.
My new philosophy, though, is this- don't rag on a movie that makes me laugh as hard as this one did. Fans of dark humor will probably like it even more than me. This is definitely one of those movies that exceeded and soared beyond my original expectations. (Rated R)
Recommendation- Another high-speed farce you can see concerning myriad disasters befalling a family during a gathering is Only Human
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