Death At A Funeral

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

One of the toughest genres in film is undoubtedly the black comedy. It’s such because it involves often making light of the most embarrassing and potentially painful of moments.

Now director Frank Oz, a director unusually known for unusual comedies like Bowfinger and his adaptation of the novel The Stepford Wives, tries his hand with what is arguably his darkest comedy to date. It’s none other than Death At A Funeral, now available on DVD.

In a London home, a well-to-do family must deal with the passing of their beloved father as they hold the funeral in their parents’ home. However, within the course of the day, his death becomes the least of their problems.

Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen), who still lives with his parents, attempts to keep the funeral in order. However, he also is attempting to muster the courage to move out of his parents’ home into a flat with his wife Jane (Keeley Hawes) and get his novel published, while dealing with the rivalry of his more successful Manhattan-residing novelist brother (Rupert Graves).

However, Daniel also must deal with his cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan)’s boyfriend Simon’s (Alan Tudyk) shenanigans after he inadvertently taking pills off her brother Troy (Kris Marshall) and trips out. Martha, however, must deal with Troy’s friend Justin (Ewen Bremner) and her father who both keep coaxing her into dumping Simon. However, the proceedings only get more disastrous for the family, culminating into blackmail and perhaps even accidental murder, when an unknown little person named Peter (Peter Dinklage) shows up at the funeral and soon threatens to expose their father’s potentially scandalous secret.

Death At A Funeral is a particularly chaotic brand of black comedy. While it benefits from a stellar cast who give great performances, the film’s genuinely good-natured characters and message of self-acceptance is obscured by catastrophic and often morbid mishaps that, while are occasionally funny, like the family’s elderly, doddering uncle on a toilet, are more often than not too painful and hard to stomach.

The DVD’s picture quality is in the 1:85:1 anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio, with the sound quality in Dolby Digital Surround 5.1. The DVD also comes packed with plenty of special features.

The first are two audio commentaries. The first features director Frank Oz, while the second features writer Dean Craig and actors Andy Nyman and Alan Tudyk.

While the first is informative enough, it’s the group commentary that ends up being the more engaging of the two. Rounding out the special features is a gag reel, filled with some fairly funny outtakes.

All in all, Death At A Funeral is very well setup in terms of its multi-tiered plot and many