Review of Bernie (2012) by Dawdlingpoet — 22 Nov 2021

This is a biographical comedy film, with crime elements and it includes themes such as charity and selfishness. This is quite a light hearted film, although it obviously deals with serious subjects, such as (the most obvious) death and the funeral business or industry. The comedy is relatively black, thus, as is fairly inevitable, its dark in tone but it features quite mild mannered characters, especially the main character of Bernie himself.

Perhaps some may feel its a little disrespectful in the way it lightly pokes fun of the industry, of people like Bernie but I didn't feel it to be an especially offensive film as such. There again, I'm somewhat open minded in terms of death, what happens (or not) and moreso the way societies deal with death culturally. Its safe to say that this film gently pokes fun at the chaotic situations families can find themselves in when having to deal with organising funerals, with Bernie hoping to be allowed to make key decisions, clearly showing his pride while demonstrating his knowledge of the funeral homes various coffins and services etc.

Cast wise, Jack Black plays the main character, Bernie. He visually appears like quite a prim and proper type, wearing a shirt and with a fairly small/thin moustache on his face - perhaps you could say he has a slight hint of Englishness on him, although I should point out that of course this is an American film. Speaking of that (no pun intended), most of the characters have fairly thick southern (think Texas dialect) American accents. I found it quite easy to follow the majority of what was said but perhaps a few people may potentially struggle a little bit with some lines of dialogue, which are a bit rushed but it shouldn't be a big issue for most people, I would certainly have thought. Of course I don't mean this in any form of xenophobic, or racist, way, as I happily admit that people with thick Scottish accents (me being Scottish myself) can be a bit difficult for people from elsewhere to fully follow - I have issues with that myself and I live here!. Anyway, I felt that Bernie, as a character, seemed more likeable perhaps in part due to his accent - im not entirely sure I can explain why but I did think that. There is an element of naivety to his character which seemed endearing.

Other characters include Marjorie Nugent (the lady who Bernie initially develops a friendship with), played by Shirley MacLaine. She also has the appearance, certainly initially, of a fairly mild mannered, while also somewhat secretive, type. I liked the scenes with both of them, they worked well together as actors in character. Matthew McConaughey plays Danny Buck, more of a macho, manly type. It was nice to see him in such a comedy film - he usually appears either in romantic comedies (which this isn't really, although it'd be easy to presume it might be but its more quirky and zany and certainly a lot more comedy based than romantic based, trust me on that) or, more recently, in dramas.

I should add that the film comes across a bit like a mockumentary, in as much as some scenes show characters talking directly to the camera, as if being interviewed for a TV show, about what happened to Bernie - his and Marjorie's relationship. You never hear from the person behind the camera, any narration is from Jack Black. As I say, this is a fairly zany film, not in a gross out comedy way or in a completely off-the-wall way but in as much as the characters had a definite eccentricity edge to them - the people featured don't appear to take things too seriously at all, aside from some of the things mentioned during the presumed interview pieces.

Content wise, the film contains the ocassional sex reference, including mention of a character potentially being gay and some violence, mostly relatively mild to moderate, nothing especially graphic, although; due to the themes, there are times where corpses are depicted. There is some strong language and there's a scene depicting a road traffic accident, with injured and dead people shown still at the scene, which could upset or frighten some. Due to this, the film has been given a 12 rating.

I felt it was quite an easy watch - it was relatively intriguing and funny at times, so it certainly wasn't bad. A part of me felt that it was perhaps a bit too middle of the road-ish but I quite enjoyed it overall. Oh and it is, apparently, based on a true story, which made it quite interesting. At the end, we're shown archive (library) stills and footage, which was also intriguing.

Yes I'd recommend this film, as I found it quite amusing at times, featuring some funny characters and it was an enjoyable easy watch. I'd recommend it on that basis.