8/20/07

Death at a Funeral - 2007

Here is a bunch of familiar faces, even though we might need a little reminding where we've seen them before. Suffice it to say, this starts with a funeral. The hearse brings the corpse to a substantial middle-class home; the grieving son, Matthew Macfadyen (Mr. Darcy in the latest "Pride and Prejudice") opens the casket and discovers they have brought the wrong man. The funeral attendants make a hasty exit and promise to return as quickly as possible. Thus our story begins.

We visit a variety of homes and watch a variety of folks preparing for the funeral in a variety of ways. One fellow, who is waiting for a ride, is concluding a phone deal for some quasi-LSD, so he hurriedly dumps out some Valium and puts his "stash" in the bottle. The folks coming by to pick him up are nearly broadsided en route and the husband, Alan Tudyk ("Firefly," "28 Days" and "A Knight's Tale") is so rattled that his wife, Keeley Hawes ("Me and Mrs. Jones" and "Macbeth"), spotting the Valium bottle on the table, gives him one to quiet his nerves. His "trip" is a hoot. Everyone in the theatre was laughing as he became fixated on one woman's silly hat. He's a terrific actor and actually pulls off the nude scene very nicely, as well.

Peter Dinklage ("The Station Agent," "Elf" and "Find Me Guilty") is a hitherto unknown guest who becomes very un-welcome, indeed!

Our hero's brother, Rupert Graves ("The Forsyte Saga," "Tenant of Wildfell Hall" and "Amazing Grace") is a successful author who flew first class from New York to London and now pleads poverty when our hero needs the lion's share of the inheritance money to purchase a flat for his family.

We are treated to the usual assortment of quirky folks and situations - the British are very good at that - and my only regret was that there were no captions, because I have no doubt that much witty dialogue got by me. Wait... Rent the DVD... Turn on the captions. (Even without them, I laughed out loud.) You will enjoy it!