Perhaps I am missing a gene for finding English silliness funny. I think much of the comedy of Peter Sellers and Monty Python is stupid, though I have some weakness for their puns. I found "Cold Comfort Farm" quite funny, along with the "classic" Alec Guiness and Alistair Sim comedies (and Tony Richardson's funeral-industry satire "The Loved One"), but found "Death at a Funeral" (written by novice Dean Craig and directed by Frank Oz (responsible for such marvels as "The Stepford Wives" remake) only sporadically and then only mildly amusing.

It has some gross-out bathroom humor that I thought was American witlessness, and some switched drug wildness that at least provided a pretext for some nudity by the exceedingly pale-skinned Alan Tudyk (formerly of "Firefly"). (I don't think that nudity needs justification, so that there is no such thing for me as "gratuitous nudity.") There is, of course, class-difference humor. Sibling rivalry (the stay-at-home failure Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) and the gone-to-America success, Robert (Rupert Graves)) is almost as much a given in English comedy as class consciousness. Dwarf humor is mostly missing, at least verbally. And there is drug humor instead of alcoholism humor.

And there is a fuzzy, warm, accepting finish. But I actively dislike the framing of a request for some recognition by Peter (Peter Dinklage, so memorable as "The Station Agent") as blackmail. Granted, he settles on a figure rather quickly...

Every attempt to get the survivors (let alone the guests!) settled, so the vicar (Thomas Wheatley) can get to whatever his next appointment is, leads to new problems/complications. I guess that the best parts are the four times the coffin is opened and Simon (Alan Tudyk) climbing a steep roof without shoes (or clothes) and being soothed by his fiancee Martha (Daisy Donovan).

To lay out the misunderstandings and plot twists would spoil what pleasure there is to be had in the movie, which many have viewed as warm-hearted, heartwarming slapstick. I think that much of the humor is unearned, as is the heartwarming final resolution. (I am puzzled that many of the same people who thought the ending of "The Savages" who phony were charmed by the very tidy feel-good-almost-all-around resolution in "Death at a Funeral.")

The cast (including Jane Asher as the widow who does not appear to be at all grief-stricken but who would like a modicum of decorum) give it their all. Would that they had a wittier script to work with!

I felt that I gagged enough on watching the movie and skipped the bonus feature gag reel and the two (!) commentary tracks (one with Thomas Wheatley, one with Craig, actors Tudyk, and Andy Nyman, who played Howard in the movie). The DVD transfer looked good, both for interiors and exteriors.





Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD