Haggisboy
12-10-2007, 01:31 PM
Death at a Funeral is almost an anachronism in that virtually nobody is making grand farces anymore. Directed by Frank Oz (Bowfinger, the voice of Yoda) and written by Dean Craig, the movie plays out as one large black screwball comedy that, while uneven at times, largely hits all the right notes and makes for some enjoyably twisted viewing.
With a large ensemble cast comprised largely of supporting veterans of the British stage and screen, Death at a Funeral tells the story of a rural English funeral for the family patriarch that quickly degenerates into a panoply of gaffes and embarrassments with comic precision akin to one big Rube Goldberg machine.
Right from the get go you know this isn’t going to be any ordinary, austere gathering when cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan), in an attempt to calm her nervous fiancé Simon (Alan Tudyk) with valium, mistakenly gives him a powerful hallucinogen during a quick stop to pick up Troy (Kris Marshall), her chemist-in-training/ecstasy-dealing brother.
Add to the mix an assortment of family members each with their own various quirks and tics, and the surprise appearance of a homosexual midget (Peter Dinklage of The Station Agent) on a quest to extort hush money from the family to keep him from revealing photographs of his affair to the deceased's widow, and you have a deliciously warped and twisted setting for an escalating comedy of errors.
While Oz takes the credit for having a keen director’s eye and spotting the gold in Craig’s script, it’s the screenplay that is the real star of this film. In lesser hands Death in a Funeral might have veered into little more than a pedestrian comedy. Instead, peppered with sublimely funny dialogue and ever-mounting self-perpetuating absurdist scenarios, at its worst it left me grinning from ear-to-ear, and at its best snorting and guffawing out loud.
Interview with Frank Oz about the film (http://www.ioncinema.com/news.php?nid=1296)
With a large ensemble cast comprised largely of supporting veterans of the British stage and screen, Death at a Funeral tells the story of a rural English funeral for the family patriarch that quickly degenerates into a panoply of gaffes and embarrassments with comic precision akin to one big Rube Goldberg machine.
Right from the get go you know this isn’t going to be any ordinary, austere gathering when cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan), in an attempt to calm her nervous fiancé Simon (Alan Tudyk) with valium, mistakenly gives him a powerful hallucinogen during a quick stop to pick up Troy (Kris Marshall), her chemist-in-training/ecstasy-dealing brother.
Add to the mix an assortment of family members each with their own various quirks and tics, and the surprise appearance of a homosexual midget (Peter Dinklage of The Station Agent) on a quest to extort hush money from the family to keep him from revealing photographs of his affair to the deceased's widow, and you have a deliciously warped and twisted setting for an escalating comedy of errors.
While Oz takes the credit for having a keen director’s eye and spotting the gold in Craig’s script, it’s the screenplay that is the real star of this film. In lesser hands Death in a Funeral might have veered into little more than a pedestrian comedy. Instead, peppered with sublimely funny dialogue and ever-mounting self-perpetuating absurdist scenarios, at its worst it left me grinning from ear-to-ear, and at its best snorting and guffawing out loud.
Interview with Frank Oz about the film (http://www.ioncinema.com/news.php?nid=1296)