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Movie review: Death at a Funeral
Top Comics Make ‘Death at A Funeral’ A Guilty Pleasure
By Maggie Scott
You’d think that the gravity and decorum of a funeral would put people on their best behavior. But, like that other great milestone in life at which family, friends and business acquaintances gather-—a wedding—such may not always be the case.
Particularly under the strain of sorrow, guilt and regret, grieving family members can forget themselves and turn a somber occasion into an opportunity to make hilarious fools of themselves, feeling the urgency of mortality and unrequited desires and the weight of past wrongs and inadequacies. Mining these rich possibilities for indecorous impropriety is director Neil LaBute’s remake of the 2007 British comedy, Death at a Funeral.
Not just any American remake, but an American remake from an African-American perspective. As written by Dean Craig, closely adhering to the source material, three of the characters who gather at a home-based wake for a family patriarch ultimately come off as mannequins clothed in the personalities of some of the most popular African-American comedians of the era: Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, and Tracy Morgan. Which is not to say that the proceedings disintegrate into a free-for-all of ethnic subversiveness.
To this reviewer, who saw the original movie, it appears that LaBute has managed to transplant a bit of the British reserve so cleverly subverted by the manic pickle a son faces when he learns his late father led a secret life and it literally comes bursting out of the dead man’s coffin.
The transplant is most apparent in the way in which Chris Rock as Aaron Barnes attempts to retain a dignified front in the face of spouses, relatives and friends who start making the gathering a forum for airing their issues. Aaron’s wife (Regina Hall) wants to get pregnant and move out of her in-laws’ house. Aaron’s brother (Lawrence) wants to lord it over Aaron that he’s not only the favorite son of their mother (Loretta Devine), but he’s the famous writer Aaron (who’s trying to come up with a eulogy) would like to be. Their cousin Elaine (Zoe Saldana) is riding herd on her Caucasian boyfriend (James Marsden), determined to change her father’s mind about him, and trying to evade her hang-dog-looking ex (Luke Wilson). The boyfriend is trying to win over his potential relatives, but doesn’t exactly make a sterling impression, when he accidentally ingests an hallucinogenic drug.
Adding to Aaron’s aggravations is a friend (Morgan) convinced his rash is fatal; an uncle (Danny Glover), with an irritable bowel, vociferously exasperated by the foolishness around him; and a mysterious small man no one seems to know who keeps staring at Aaron most discomfortingly. Frank (Peter Dinklage) doesn’t appear to be interested in paying his respects, but is very interested in getting Aaron to pay him to keep his mouth shut about the special friendship he had with Aaron’s father.
All Aaron wants to do is honor the memory of his father—“an exceptional man.” But, until then, there are going to be some exceptionally lively moments before the dearly departed can finally be the center of attention—without shocking the guests.
This slap-happy guilty pleasure is one remake that does the original proud. It’s your funeral if you miss it. A Screen Gems picture, rated R for language, drug content, sexual humor and nudity.
