Death at a Funeral – more like the slow death of comedy (LINK)
April 19th 2008 00:31
I am slow to critique other peoples’ artistic efforts. It is effortless to disparage, ridicule and mock. Some people devote their lives to these ends and they are, on the whole, bitter and twisted without a creative bone in their belittling bodies. And my late granny, may her soul rest in peace, did drum it into my head that if you have nothing nice to say, best to say nothing.
It is much braver and creditable to actually pull something together. Even if in the end, people use words like ‘unreadable,’ ‘melodramatic claptrap’ to describe our efforts.
But sometimes, there is a work of such little artistic finesse, with absolutely no redeeming qualities I can scrape off the bottom of the artistic integrity barrel, that I am forced, as I find myself today, to pen a warning to anyone out there, to avoid making the mistake I did last night in actually paying money (the equivalent of two coffees) and wasting 45 minutes (I couldn’t watch to the end) vacillating between outright irritation and boredom. I best warn you now this is a spoiler if you haven’t already had to endure this tawdry, messy, boring piece of movie garbage.
The culprit here is the British so-called comedy ‘Death at a Funeral,’ directed by Frank Oz, and described as ‘the most wickedly hilarious crowd-pleasing British comedy since Four Weddings and a Funeral.’ Being a complete British-humourphile, I could not resist this. What with Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Men Behaving Badly, Monty Python, and The Office as historical forerunners, I assumed this would be ‘wet-your-pants’ kinda stuff.
Also Frank Oz is the brilliant puppeteer of Muppets fame, the voice of Miss Piggy, Yoda from the Star Wars series with a string of other accomplishments under his belt which tend to set one up with Great Expectations for something deliciously spectacular.
What is the death of humour? Predictability, of course. Coupled with poor characterization (the old grump in the wheelchair who swears a lot – this is supposed to be hilarious), the gay dwarf (is this supposed to be funny?) and just crap acting by everyone, horrible dialogue and gratuitous scenes where one character recounts to another what the audience has just seen… yawn. How did this happen?
From the moment the coffin arrives in the opening scene, you know this is going to be the wrong dead guy. And it is. Then there’s the scene with the Valium bottle, and the bottle landing in the wrong hands, and the scene the fiancé causes at the funeral, causing the coffin, of course to fall over and the dead body to fall out… not one cliché was left unturned here. And for a comedy, there was not a single laugh to be had. To be honest, I found this an excruciating ordeal.
This movie reminded me of those Carry On movies, which at least were hilarious in their day. Haven’t we moved on from slapstick? These days for slapstick to be funny, it has to be coupled with smart dialogue, clever characterization, subtleties, nuances…something redemptive, like Nacho Libre (ok, I know people out there may disagree, but I think it is smart, satirical and at moments, pants-wettingly funny – especially when Nacho sings to Ramses at the party, and makes up a love song for the nun Sister Encarnación).
It did not help that I watched Death at A Funeral hot on the heels of the not-so-funny London to Brighton, a shocking, devastating, but utterly brilliant movie reviewed on 20/20 Filmsight a few weeks ago, showing British filmmaking at its very best.If there is a single redeeming feature about this movie it is the fact that it is a One Night New Release dvd from Blockbusters which means I have to return it today. Thank God.
www.joannefedler.com
It is much braver and creditable to actually pull something together. Even if in the end, people use words like ‘unreadable,’ ‘melodramatic claptrap’ to describe our efforts.
But sometimes, there is a work of such little artistic finesse, with absolutely no redeeming qualities I can scrape off the bottom of the artistic integrity barrel, that I am forced, as I find myself today, to pen a warning to anyone out there, to avoid making the mistake I did last night in actually paying money (the equivalent of two coffees) and wasting 45 minutes (I couldn’t watch to the end) vacillating between outright irritation and boredom. I best warn you now this is a spoiler if you haven’t already had to endure this tawdry, messy, boring piece of movie garbage.
The culprit here is the British so-called comedy ‘Death at a Funeral,’ directed by Frank Oz, and described as ‘the most wickedly hilarious crowd-pleasing British comedy since Four Weddings and a Funeral.’ Being a complete British-humourphile, I could not resist this. What with Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Men Behaving Badly, Monty Python, and The Office as historical forerunners, I assumed this would be ‘wet-your-pants’ kinda stuff.
Death at a Funeral
Also Frank Oz is the brilliant puppeteer of Muppets fame, the voice of Miss Piggy, Yoda from the Star Wars series with a string of other accomplishments under his belt which tend to set one up with Great Expectations for something deliciously spectacular.
What is the death of humour? Predictability, of course. Coupled with poor characterization (the old grump in the wheelchair who swears a lot – this is supposed to be hilarious), the gay dwarf (is this supposed to be funny?) and just crap acting by everyone, horrible dialogue and gratuitous scenes where one character recounts to another what the audience has just seen… yawn. How did this happen?
From the moment the coffin arrives in the opening scene, you know this is going to be the wrong dead guy. And it is. Then there’s the scene with the Valium bottle, and the bottle landing in the wrong hands, and the scene the fiancé causes at the funeral, causing the coffin, of course to fall over and the dead body to fall out… not one cliché was left unturned here. And for a comedy, there was not a single laugh to be had. To be honest, I found this an excruciating ordeal.
This movie reminded me of those Carry On movies, which at least were hilarious in their day. Haven’t we moved on from slapstick? These days for slapstick to be funny, it has to be coupled with smart dialogue, clever characterization, subtleties, nuances…something redemptive, like Nacho Libre (ok, I know people out there may disagree, but I think it is smart, satirical and at moments, pants-wettingly funny – especially when Nacho sings to Ramses at the party, and makes up a love song for the nun Sister Encarnación).
Jack Black in Nacho Libre
It did not help that I watched Death at A Funeral hot on the heels of the not-so-funny London to Brighton, a shocking, devastating, but utterly brilliant movie reviewed on 20/20 Filmsight a few weeks ago, showing British filmmaking at its very best.If there is a single redeeming feature about this movie it is the fact that it is a One Night New Release dvd from Blockbusters which means I have to return it today. Thank God.
www.joannefedler.com
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Comment by Jayne Kearney
Writers In Writing (and other writing)
Have to say I agree wholeheartedly. I too, was taken in by the Four Weddings and A Funeral comparison. There is no comparison except for the word 'funeral' in the title. For me it followed hot on the heels of Love And Other Disasters - another crap Brit film in my view. I must get myself a copy of London to Brighton in order to redeem the British film industry!
Unfortunately I have to write about Death At A Funeral for my next blog because of that incredibly ridiculous character who is supposedly a bestselling author. What a cliche that guy was - even down to the greasy black hair. And that's not to mention his brother - he of the secret novel manuscript. I don't know if we were supposed to believe his manuscript was great or not but going on the eulogy he wrote for his father I would say, "Keep it in the drawer, Big Boy!"
And I know what you mean about the difficulty in posting a bad review but sometimes it just bursts out of you.
Cheers
Jayne
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Comment by Mrs M
Mum's Word
You're right it wasn't great. But I did make it to the end and it did seem to be easier to watch as the movie went on.
I found the guy that took the "valium" hilarious at times.
But yes, it certainly wasn't brilliant.
Love & stuff
Mrs M
Comment by Miswanderlust
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Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
I agree 100%. my experience was like yours and Jayne's. I was so disappointed.
Mis