death of a funeral

There is a painful mirth specific to British black comedy. It is a long and torturous episode of laugh-moans at the sight of our refined counterparts faced with obscenely unrefined situations. With the same uneasy fascination of watching an overly inflated balloon reach its last rubbery stretches we watch the politely nervous pats to the brow, the eyeful of abhorrent disbelief and all the while our eager American breathes bated with the question: Will it pop?

It, more precisely, refers to him: Daniel (played by the baby-faced Matthew Macfadyen) an earnest everyman left to preside over his father's funeral. With a coffin mix-up to get the funeral started, it's clear that nothing is bound to go smoothly.

Soon a colorful hodgepodge of black clad relatives make the haphazard drive to pay respects-Daniel's sharp-tongued cousin Martha with anxious boyfriend Simon (a frazzled Alan Tudyk) in tow; the unsuave Justin and chattering Howard who stop to pick up Uncle Alfie, whose physical disablement doesn't hinder his droll senility and, as we soon discover, bowel capacity. Throw in some hallucinogenic pills courtesy of Martha's brother Troy, mysterious dwarf Peter (Station Agent's Peter Dinklage), who has scandalous photos of the departed, a naked Simon crawling about the rooftops and-well you get the gist.

Just when you think you've seen the worst of Daniel's troubles, another mishap occurs drawing the film toward the black and away from the comedy. There are plenty of laughs, but it's the kind of hilarity embittered by a guilty aftertaste. Simon's delusional romp amidst the mourners is, after all, drug-induced, and funny as it is, dwarf kidnapping is not the most upright scheme.

Nevertheless, the film is not without an underlying tenderness, and if the plot seems a bit outrageous at times, the characters, performed by some of Britain's finest, are perfectly constructed as fallible humans who cope with life and loss in imperfect but authentic ways. Funeral is dark and at times brutal, but then such is life and such is death.