Death at a Funeral
Friday, 02 Nov 2007 16:55
Death at a Funeral inthenews.co.uk british film review
Directed by Frank Oz, out November 2nd in cinemas, starring Matthew MacFadyen, Rupert Graves, Daisy Donovan, Alan Tudyk, Kris Marshall and Andy Nyman, running time 90mins.
In a nutshell...
Tragic, Death, British, Catastrophe
What's it all about?
Daniel (Matthew MacFadyen's) father has recently passed away and today is the day of the funeral ceremony. Left in charge of organising the tragic event, Daniel finds himself under mounting pressure from first his wife Sandra (Keeley Hawes), who is desperate to move out right after the burial, and then his distraught mother (Jane Asher). The arrival of his successful yet utterly selfish brother Robert (Rupert Graves) from New York adds to the problems and as the guests start to arrive, it becomes apparent that each of them are bringing their own troubles and dilemmas.
Cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan), accompanied by her druggy student brother Troy (Kris Marshall) and her usually ultra-sensible fiance Simon (Alan Tudyk), is determined to show her father that her current man really is the one for her. However events conspire against her with Simon mistakenly taking one of Troy's unusual concoctions, leading to an eight hour acid trip, threatening to wreck the entire ceremony. Daniel's friends Howard (Andy Nyman) and Justin (Ewen Bremner) are equally no help when they eventually arrive with the irritable and obnoxious Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan). The appearance and the subsequent unveiling of a mysterious guest (Peter Drinklage) leads to the funeral finally descending into utter chaos. Quiet reflection and mourning is not on the cards anymore, the question is, how will Daniel cope as this important day crumbles around him?
Who's in it?
Director Frank Oz follows his Stepford Wives (2004) re-make with an attempt at a traditional British comedy. He has assembled an impressive cast of household actors to complete the task for him this time round too. Matthew MacFadyen (Pride and Prejudice, Spooks) and Rupert Graves (V for Vendetta) play the squabbling siblings while Daisy Donovan (11 O'clock Show, Daisy Does America), Kris Marshall (My Family, Love Actually) and Peter Vaughan (Brazil, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers) provide plenty of support. Alan Tudyk (Dodgeball, Serenity) is handed the most challenging role, playing the hallucinating Simon, while Andy Nyman (Severance) plays the worrying Howard with convincing ease.
As an example…
"You can't fight what we had together." - Justin
"Justin, it was one night. It was a massive mistake. I was drunk out of my mind. You could have been a donkey!" - Martha
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars?
A small scale British film with a primarily British cast will receive considerable attention on this side of the Atlantic; it will however struggle to make any dent in the US market.
Expect a reasonable performance in the UK box office throughout the winter, though this success will in no way based on actual merit.
What others say?
"I hear the script was funny, which is hard to believe: this is grim, misjudged and seems to go on forever." – The Telegraph
"At its best, British farce should seem effortless. In Death at a Funeral, the effort shows. Sub-plots are contrived and relationships pat." – Hollywood Reporter
So is it any good?
It is inevitable that any British film released about funerals or weddings will forever be compared to Richard Curtis's Four Weddings. A comparison here does not favour Frank Oz's film at all. Perhaps plagued by an American tendency to do everything in an over-the-top, wild and loud fashion, the director seems to have missed the trick completely here and failed to produce, what on paper is, a very straight forward British comedy.
The first half of the film is utterly dire. We are introduced to the grieving Daniel through whispers and wrong coffins and what appears to be a steady base upon which to stage the story soon falls away. Circumstances and dialogue are simply not funny and in an act of desperation we are presented with Tudyk's accidentally drugged character. This premise is funny for all of 30 seconds and quickly becomes very dull and unbelievably repetitive. To continue with this single joke throughout the entire film and to the extent where it comes to dominate all other story lines, is both lazy and ridiculously unimaginative. For the first hour of the film you wonder why on earth this film was classed as a comedy as all it appears to be is a series of uncomfortable scenarios throughout which nothing spectacular, imaginative or crucially, funny happens. The film is saved from complete disaster by the introduction of Dinklage's sinister and blackmailing Peter, a twist that at last provides a few laughs.
The best scene comes from Howard and Uncle Alfie's liaison in the bathroom, where another lack of ideas leads to gross-out humour being introduced in an attempt to salvage something from the film. Death at a Funeral is neither dark nor funny, it betrays its billing as a British family comedy and a simple premise requiring simple execution has been woefully put together.
A huge disappointment; an improved second half can not prevent it from being a complete disaster. There are few laughs to be had here and when they arrive, they're unoriginal and extremely unimaginative.
4/10
Richard James
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