Review of Death at a Funeral (2007) by Remote G — 27 Jan 2011

By Jess McSchmesh for remotegoat on 10/11/07.

In his latest foray into film Frank Oz seems to have opted for a genre in which he felt comfortable, farce.

Comfortable he may have been, but on all too many an occasion the audience weren't.

This could have worked to the films benefit and in deed on occasion did; funerals are after all uncomfortable.

Oz has assembled a mixture of strong and talented up-and-coming stars, comic and character actors, all of whom are inexplicably underused to varying degrees. Matthew Macfadyen excels as an oppressed unsung hero, but Rupert Graves is wasted with obvious and puerile one-liners, Keeley Hawes frustration is palatable, perhaps more in the director's restraint in utilising her abilities as an actress rather than the characters need to break free. Ewen Bremner performs like a dead man walking, strange from one usually so promising. Peter Egan and Peter Vaughan portray the British male archetype with a stiff upper lip and grumpy hindsight respectively injecting much needed pathos into an ailing script. Jane Asher veers from the mother in law from hell to a grieving cardboard cut out. Kris Marshall seems to walk through the film mugging and repeating everything the last character said while Andy Nyman stutters his way through.

It is only in the second half the film redeems itself from the over characterisation. It's the stayed performance from Macfadyen and the polar opposite hysteria from Alan Tudyk and Daisy Donovan that save this sinking ship. As the farce dissolves into ridiculousness it almost rescues itself with fast pace and borderline lunacy.

Having said that everything about this film was a leap back to the nineties, the cinematography, costume etc. Here we were again in the fictitious middle England so loved of Hollywood. This is an England in which credible actors are turned into stereotypes and at least one cast member must, MUST be American.

Our American this time takes the form of a wholly different kind of love interest in the wonderful Peter Dinklage.

Four Weddings and a funeral this is not, as much as it try's to be, thankfully some may say. However much comparisons between Matthew Macfadyen's eulogy and John Hannah's are moot point, it was Macfadyen's that won the viewer over through the actors skill alone, he is the current one to watch.