Review of The Pallbearer (1996) by Sergio E — 28 Sep 2009

Ok the movie is very tedious to watch and I like funny things this wasn't funny interesting or anything it was a dare I say a disater of a movie!!

And another thing I can't believe how Toni Collette could look sexy now and then she couldn't when she was younger.. do things really get better with age!! I starting to think so!!

David Schwimmer plays a drifting twentysomething who receives a telephone call out of the blue to be a pallbearer at the funeral of someone he supposedly knew in school. Trouble is, the caller has mistaken Schwimmer's character for someone else, but our hapless hero--who still lives with his mother at home--doesn't know how to say no. An encounter with the dead man's mother (Barbara Hershey) leads to a sexual relationship, while an old flame (Gwyneth Paltrow) from high school is suddenly on the horizon if only Schwimmer's loser character can quickly get his act together. This umpteenth variation on the Oedipal conflicts in Mike Nichols's The Graduate doesn't have the imagination, vitality, or authority to take classic themes about growing up all the way to the finish line. But in its brooding, comic way, it is honest about the difficulties of crossing the line into adulthood when one doesn't know how.

Chaos unfolds as Tom is roped into being a pallbearer (and delivering the eulogy!) by the mother of a recently deceased "friend" from high school that he just can't remember. In the meantime, an unrequited love from high school (NOT the dead guy's girlfriend) reappears in his life.