Death at a Funeral (2007) [Blu-ray]
Comedy

From acclaimed director Frank Oz (In & Out, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) comes "a fast, furious and riotously funny farce" (Maxim) that'll have you dying with laughter! As the mourners and guests at a British country manor struggle valiantly to "keep a stiff upper lip," a dignified ceremony devolves into a hilarious, no-holds-barred debacle of misplaced cadavers, indecent exposure and shocking family secrets. Including audio commentaries and an uproarious gag reel, Death At A Funeral blows the lid off the proverbial coffin as "the film's delicious comic flourishes - sight gags, slapstick, flawless timing - are served up by an outstanding cast" (O, The Oprah Magazine).

Storyline: Daniel is a decent young man, married to Jane, still living at his father's home. When his father dies, it is up to him to organize his funeral. On this painful morning, the suitable grave expression on his face, Daniel is ready to welcome his father's friends and relatives. But preserving the dignity inherent in such circumstances will be a hard task. Particularly with an undertaker who botches his work, the return from the USA of his famous but selfish brother, his cousin's fiancé who has accidentally ingested drugs, the presence a moron who takes advantage of the sad event to win back the heart (or rather the body) of a woman who is about to marry another, of a handicapped old uncle who is also the most unbearable pain in the neck. To cap it all, Daniel notices the presence among the mourners of a mysterious dwarf nobody else seems to know... Written by Guy Bellinger

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Michael Reuben, June 30, 2011 -- The more solemn the occasion, the better it is for farce. What deeper well of solemnity could one imagine than a funeral in a lugubrious English country home? Dean Craig's script for Death at a Funeral takes full advantage of the fact that mourners often assemble with powerful emotions barely held in check. Craig winds everyone's springs too tightly, then steps back while they all come undone.

Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) greets the undertakers at the door of the house where he grew up and still lives, even now that he's married. The undertakers bear the coffin containing Daniel's father, whose earthly remains are returning to the house one last time for a funeral service. There's just one problem. When the undertakers open the coffin to show Daniel how beautifully his father has been prepared for burial, the body is someone else. The day goes downhill from there.

(I haven't revealed any more than the film's trailer. The real joke is the reaction of the undertakers.)

Now it's time to meet the principal mourners. There's Daniel's brother, Robert (Rupert Graves), for whom the term "sibling rivalry" is too mild. Robert is a successful novelist, who lives in America. His books are widely read, whereas Daniel cannot even bring himself to show anyone the first draft on which he's been toiling for years. Daniel has written a eulogy for their father, but everyone is disappointed that Robert isn't delivering one, since, after all, he's the writer in the family. To make matters worse, Robert is a spendthrift who announces that he's broke at the moment and can't pay his half of the funeral expenses. Meanwhile, Daniel's wife, Jane (Keeley Hawes, married to Macfadyen in real life), keeps pressing him to place a deposit on a flat so they can finally have a place of their own. And Daniel's mother (Jane Asher), newly widowed, positively blossoms when Robert enters the room.

Then there's cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan), daughter of the deceased's brother, Victor (Peter Egan). Martha is nervous, because her father hates her boyfriend, Simon (Alan Tudyk from Firefly and Dollhouse), who is accompanying her to the funeral. Simon himself is terrified of his girlfriend's father, so much so that when they stop to pick up Martha's brother, Troy (Kris Marshall), Martha gives Simon valium to calm his nerves. Except that it isn't valium. Unbeknownst to Martha, her brother, a student pharmacist, has been making extra money dealing designer drugs, and the bottle labeled "valium" contains a powerful hallucinogen. Simon's behavior is about to become very strange.

Martha has even more challenges ahead of her. An old flame, Justin (Ewen Bremner), has decided that her uncle's funeral is the perfect occasion to make a new play for Martha, and he's tagged along with a long-time family friend, Howard (Andy Nyman). It's only a minor inconvenience when Daniel phones Howard en route and diverts him to a retirement home to pick up wheelchair-bound Uncle Alfie (veteran English actor Peter Vaughan). Justin will spend the entire day sidling up to Martha like he's God's gift, oblivious to anything else that's happening (including the fact that Martha is trying to control her accidentally drugged boyfriend).

The most mysterious mourner is a diminutive figure whom no one recognizes (Peter Dinklage, currently on Game of Thrones). After everyone has gathered, he introduces himself to Daniel as "Peter", a friend of his late father, and proceeds to reveal an entire side of his father's life that Daniel never knew. Now, in addition to dealing with the escalating dramas around him, Daniel also has to confront a blackmailer.

Director Frank Oz, whose best work includes Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, What About Bob? and Bowfinger, keeps everything moving at a fast clip, pausing just long enough to convey essential information at the beginning and to let viewers catch their breath between laughs thereafter. Effective farce requires keeping an audience interested while you move all the players into position, and Oz assembled a skilled cast capable of distinguishing each character with a few broad strokes so that we quickly grasp who everyone is. Then it's on to the film's real business, where doors slam, decorum shatters, bodies fall, clothes come off, people get tied up, repulsive things happen in bathrooms, and Daniel never does get to deliver the eulogy he's so neatly written out on index cards.

So efficiently did Oz shepherd his actors through their paces that the final cut of the film came in under ninety minutes, which was too short to satisfy contractual obligations. Thus was born the mordantly witty title sequence, which shows an animated coffin traversing a roadmap to the funeral. It takes away nothing from the sequence's appeal to disclose that it's padding. It's very good padding, and the film that follows is even better.

Neil LaBute's 2010 remake of Death at a Funeral, retelling the same story at an African-American funeral and starring Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, was a capable effort and reasonably entertaining. But the original version stands alone, because no one equals the British in fearing embarrassment. (John Cleese gave a mini-lecture on this point in A Fish Called Wanda.) In the 2007 original, the comedy gets a booster shot from the energy that characters pour into maintaining a veneer of normalcy. As they lose it, one by one, you keep looking forward to the next one to fall. When the last one goes, it's a great moment. Highly recommended.

[CSW] -4.6- Overall it is a mockery of a stiff family with numerous awesome gags and cracks. The gay theme is not overplayed, the cast is superb and you have to see it to appreciate the essence of black British humor. I loved it. Black comedies especially straight faced and seemingly serious comedies are one of the few types of comedy that I really like and this fit the bill perfectly. If you like this type of comedy then by all means don't miss this one, it's almost perfect.
[V4.5-A4.0] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box.

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