Jul 10 2008
Extreme Recommendation
I would never dare muddle your day with a review of a film who’s DVD was released a year ago, but this one is just so good. And if there is someone out there who is unaware, they need to be enlightened.
“Death at a Funeral” starts like any English comedy, where members of an upper middle class family struggle to keep up with appearances while squirting dry humor. But although the cast and screenwriter may be of the English variety, this is not any old English comedy. Within minutes, American director Frank Oz (Bowfinger, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Yoda) quickly turns this film into stomach pain inducing farce. And the pace never stops.
Without giving to much of the film away, the fun sadly starts when Daniel, played by Matthew Macfadyen (of the BBC’s MI5), opens up his father’s casket to find the mortuary has sent the wrong body. Daniel must then handle his father’s blackmailing little person secret lover, an unruly house guest who has accidentally taken hallucinogens, and on top of all this, a death at a funeral.
Dean Craig’s screenplay and Oz’s direction compose a multi layered story throughout the course of a single funeral in one rural English home. The film plays out like a stage play, in the same vein as “Noises Off” it was played out. Please, please go out and rent or buy this film today.
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