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Sunday, February 28, 2010

2Death-at-a-Funeral-Review-Story



DEATH AT A FUNERAL
Film Directed by: Frank Oz
Distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayor(MGM)
Duration: 1 hr 30 minutes
What all things do not happen in a funeral? It is a moment when all the relatives, friends and local men gather together. Many men meet after long time on the day of a funeral. They will have many things to discuss more than the funeral itself and the innocent who died and waiting to be buried. Seldom men pity the family of the dead as they have their own sad things to share with others. Some may even make business proposals, wedding proposals at a funeral. These are few interesting things happen in such a gathering. The movie called “Death at a Funeral” portraits some funny things which happen in a funeral.
The very punch of comedy can be sensed from the scene bringing the coffin with the dead body of the wrong person and when the son says “This is not my father”. From this very first scene itself we will realise the amount of comedy the film is set to bring when it advances. The dead man has a wife living and two sons. One son, Daniel is now living with his wife Jane and mother in the dead man’s house and the other son is in New York City. He is a famous young writer. Now Jane wants to move together separate from her mother in-law to another flat. She oft asks Daniel about the plan. Daniel is actually in ‘running to seed’ situation. He expects his writer-brother to share the expense for the funeral.
People from different places arrive to the funeral. Simon and Martha are going to be married. Martha, Daniel’s cousin, is going to tell her uptight father about this at the funeral and her boyfriend will meet his future father in-law for the first time, in the funeral. Martha’s father is the brother of the dead man’s wife. Another two men who are friends of the Daniel are also on the way to the funeral in a cab. The driver is a funny guy. He does not act so funny but his dialogues and innocent submissions make his character so interesting in the story. His friend Justin travelling with him is longing to wed Martha. His drive for her is so expressive to us when he says to Martha in black outfit dressed up for the funeral, that how beautiful she is in the dress. The driver is actually so sensitive regarding his skin discolouration in the wrist. He often scratches his skin and wants to discuss the problem with others. However his friend Justin is not a good partner to share it. The driver gets a phone call from Daniel to pick uncle Alfie also to the funeral. Uncle Alfie is an old man who is handicapped and sits on a wheel chair. Driver is tensed and sad to hear this as he knows uncle Alfie to be an arrogant old man.
We get the cause behind Daniel’s wife’s plan to move separate from the dialogue of Daniel’s mother when she asks her to keep her hands away from the coffin as she might leave smudge on it.
Now Martha and her boyfriend Simon are heading to pick up her brother, Troy who is studying to be a pharmacist. Troy actually does some strange experiments from his little study and makes drug which hallucinates. When Martha knocks the door he puts some of his hallucinating drugs into a bottle of ‘Valium’ tablets, a normal drug, in order to hide it from her. Now Simon and Martha enters the house and without knowing the content in ‘Valium’ bottle, Martha gives one tablet thinking it as ‘Valium’, to a tensed Simon who is going to meet his future father in-law. Now the drug starts its impact when Simon on the way to the funeral searches for a dog which he thought was inside the cab.
In the house, Daniel is preparing for presenting a eulogy to his father. He takes a quiet place away from others and takes some paper bits from his pocket and studies “My father was an exceptional man....” The writer brother comes and he is not intending to share the funeral expense. He seems to be distracted with the fare of first class plane ticket by which he came. The priest arrives and he has time only since 3 O’ clock. Now Daniel saw a little guy Peter(dwarf) who was standing near the coffin and staring at him.  Peter meets Daniel oft and wants Daniel to tell something. As Daniel was busy with the eulogy to be presented he ran away from everyone with his bits of paper in the pocket. His wife meets him every time and asks about the plan to move to a flat.
Bringing Uncle Alfie from the car was a very interesting scene in the movie. Simon and Martha stole the parking space for the driver’s car. Suddenly another car came in front of the driver’s car. He had to drive reverse to make way for the car and Uncle Alfie has to be pushed upwards the hilly sloped way to the ceremony as Justin went after Martha without a helping hand to the driver. Uncle Alfie often complained of the driver. We could find a timely helping friend in Justin when in the presence of Daniel he lifts up Uncle Alfie only at the doorstep of house and gets all praise from Daniel.
While Daniel in the house is tensed to study the eulogy, Simon outside, behaves strangely to everyone due to impact of the hallucinating drug. The introduction of Simon to his future in-law by Martha was a kick-starter for the humorous moments by Simon to be created in the story. Martha’s father noticed the weird looks of Simon and Simon hugged dead man’s wife and says he is sorry for the death. The hug lasted for sometime and ended with a lusty flying kiss.
Now the service begins and the priest prays and reads some story from religious text. When he finished, Daniel has been asked to say a few words about his father. We could feel the heartbeat of Daniel as he starts to the coffin. Daniel sees the staring look of Peter. Daniel starts “My father was an exceptional man...”Suddenly Simon laughs. Daniel thought he was laughing at him and therefore took the paper bits from his pocket and reads: My father was an exceptional man. Simon again shouted “the coffin is moving”. He stood up tips over the coffin to the floor and the dead body was thrown out. The whole service was spoiled.
Now the main part of the story happens in the interim of tea break to settle the tense situation occurred after Simon’s performance. Peter reveals his connections with Daniel’s father. He shows some interesting photographs took with Robert and tries to blackmail money from Daniel. Peter is tied and he is served with some ‘Valium’ to calm up. Later misbelieving that Peter is dead, he is kept along with the dead body in the coffin. And when Daniel speaks up again in the eulogy, Peter comes up from the coffin and the photographs are seen by everyone and in the chaos, hue and cry, when Daniel shouts “My father was an exceptional man” we could sum up that this is a very good comedy movie.
The movie is neatly blended up with humor scenes with real sense. Uncle Alfie going to the latrine and Simon's naked show are all mixed with good reason. I rate this movie as a must-watch film.

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