Death at a Funeral (2007)

Directed by Frank Oz
Written by Dean Craig

Rated R for language and drug content

"Death at a Funeral" is a British comedy from Frank Oz, the man best known for his voice-acting work as Star Wars' Yoda or several Sesame Street characters. His comedy directing is not so famous. As the movie poster says, he also directed "In & Out" and "Bowfinger", two star-driven, big budget flops of the 90's. I would have to say that "Death at a Funeral" is Oz's finest comedic directorial effort since "What About Bob?" (1991).

"Death at a Funeral" revolves around the funeral of protagonist Daniel's father. The film opens with the hearse delivering the wrong body to the Daniel's home, where the funeral is to take place. This elicited a few giggles. Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) is an aspiring writer, but has always lived in the shadow of his brother, who is a famous writer. Daniel has chosen to give his father's eulogy, but everyone who arrives at the funeral asks if his brother Robert (Rupert Graves) will be giving the eulogy, and if not, why? After all, he is the writer in the family! All this does nothing for Daniel's self-esteem.

Daniel and Robert's cousin Martha brings her fiance Simon (Alan Tudyk) to the funeral, but Simon's terrified of Martha's father, who will also be there. Martha gives Simon what she thinks to be a Valium, but is actually a hallucinogenic compound that her brother Troy had put in a Valium bottle to transport to a buyer. One of the film's biggest flaws was predictability. As soon as Troy put the pills into the Valium bottle, I already knew that someone would get accidentally drugged.

Simon begins freaking out on the way to the funeral, and is in a very strange state by the time they arrive. Alan Tudyk is a great actor, and I love his performances of drug trips (for more, see him as a stoner in the "Dollhouse" episode "Briar Rose") so it was genuinely rib-tickling to see him go crazy with this performance. However when the "accidental drugging" gag was used not once, but twice more throughout the course of the film, I began to feel that this was just lazy storytelling.

The second major plot thread is the arrival of an American outsider to the funeral. Daniel assumes it's one of his dad's friends, and repeatedly brushes him off when the small stranger Peter (Peter Dinklage) tries to corner Daniel for a private chat. I was immediately suspicious that the stranger was in fact the dead man's gay lover. No one seemed to know him, yet he looked like he took the death harder than the dead man's family. When he finally does get Daniel alone, Peter not only tells him about their relationship, he shows him pictures! As the dead man's gay lover, Peter argues that he's entitled to some kind of inheritance. He's willing to blackmail Daniel and his brother Robert with the gay photos if the brothers can't pay him.

Robert tackles Peter and makes Daniel help tie him up. The brothers try to keep their father's secret in the closet, but someone gives Peter a handful of Troy's psychedelic pills (thinking they're Valium) to shut him up. Peter begins to bounce of the walls (somewhat literally) and ends up falling and hitting his head on the edge of a coffee table. The brothers now have their dead father's midget lover's body to dispose of, and decide the most fitting way is to put him in the coffin with their old man.

The family's crotchety, wheelchair-bound Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan) provides the film with it's funniest gross-out moment when one of the other guests must help him use the toilet and gets shit on his hand (pardon my French, but "poop" just isn't a strong enough word). In a panicked attempt to wash it off, he ends up splattering it on his face. This scene could have been from an "American Pie" style college comedy, and seemed a little out-of-place in this otherwise relatively tame black comedy.

I give "Death at a Funeral" a 7/10. It was a bit on the dramatic side for a comedy, and many of the jokes could be seen coming a mile away. The acting wasn't terrible, but there were just too many characters to give any of them the screen-time they deserved. Overall, I feel Frank Oz's movies have gone downhill since his earlier films "Dark Crystal" and "What About Bob?". I laughed quite a bit watching "Death at a Funeral", but doubt I'd ever watch it again. Definitely rent it before you buy it.

If you thought this black comedy couldn't get any blacker, check out Hollywood's insta-remake "Death at a Funeral" (2010), which stars Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan, Martin Lawrence and Danny Glover. This too-soon rehash will be out in theaters next month.














I also recommend: