Jason KingBERNIE: A Review
August 27th 2012 07:56
:
Review by the lovely Anna
Drum roll please.................we found a film that Anna liked, not only liked but pretty much loved - praise the lord lol - thanks so much Anna for attending this one while my head exploded working a 15hr day!!
I love a good story, I really do. Anything that makes you sit on the edge of your seat, shake your head in wonder or have a bit of a cry, I'm in. Done well, a story - be it in play, movie, book or TV show format, can be transfixing. Fiction usually forms the basis of these gripping tales but every now and then, fact is indeed stranger than fiction. Bernie is a prime example of this - to the point where you totally forget you're watching a true story. And, apparently writer and director Richard Linklater only took minor liberties with the story, which makes this movie even more interesting.
Using supporting characters to give the story retrospectivity works really well in this instance - and these yokels are subtly hilarious. A mix of old timers, minxy old ladies and bitchy white trash flesh out the backstory about how Bernie came to be in Carthage, Texas. I don't know if, like Best in Show, they're adlibbing but my god, they're funny. However, and this is key to Bernie's success, they're never caricatures. You can imagine running into them at the local if you ever wander into East Texas.
Through them, we learn that Bernie Tiede (Jack Black) arrived in Carthage and started work at the local funeral directors. It was through his work there that the townspeople start falling in love with him - the kindness, attentiveness, and care he shows their deceased endear him to them and his boss loves him because he's a charming upseller of caskets. He sings at services and follows up with care packages to the elderly widows. He also stars in local musicals, coaches little league teams and is generally super nice.
So nice in fact, that he persists with keen friendliness towards super bitch Marjorie Nugent (Shirley Maclaine) - the widow of the richest man in town and, in one observer's words "Not nice to a great extent, she was just evil." Shirley was made for this role, and you can tell she's enjoying herself. As she accepts Bernie's kindness and their friendship develops, she seems to become more gentle - to him anyway. They dine together, see concerts, go all over the world holidaying as only an oil baron's widow can. Bernie begins benefiting from her wealth by becoming her power of attorney (she's alienated all her family and hadn't had a friend in years) and becomes more and more indebted to her, through her guilt and his own polite niceness, until he's literally at her beck and call with a mobile phone and a pager for her to contact him, wherever and whenever he's not with her.
The town is abuzz and slightly scandlised by this friendship, and gossip abounds about the nature of it - is it sexual? Is he using her or she using him? In a sign of how little anyone in Carthage cares about her, when Marjorie goes unseen for some months, the only person who takes an interest is her accountant. When Bernie is arrested for her murder, no one in town can believe that he did it. Except Danny Buck, (Matthew McConaughy) who insists on moving the trial to a town where Bernie would most definitely be believed a murderer (and rightly so, as we see him shoot her in the back. (And no, that wasn't a spolier).
Jack Black is fantastic; but the way he plays Bernie is, at first, a little too sweet. I mean, at the beginning of the movie, he's whistling as he drives through a forest while the birds are singing, for goodness sake. As we learn more about him, he continues to be.....nice. And when Marjorie basically rips out his spine and makes him her lackey, he's still just as polite. But then, he is Southern.
Black also plays him just camp enough - the overall speculation that Bernie's gay is a not-subtle underlying factor in the film. It's spelt out quite clearly that he doesn't date the local women, and that he enjoys the singing and dancing and cooking a little too much. The suspicion about his interest in Marjorie for her money only is hardly addressed but neither is the possibility of them being anything other than companions. Even after his arrest, Black plays Bernie with such sympathy and MacLean plays Marjorie so nasty that even though you've seen him kill her, you want him to get away with it. Let's face it, someone was going to do the bitch in, and it may as well have been Bernie.
I have to make mention of a couple of things that made me laugh, and I'm really hoping they were intentional. Firstly, the visual tone of the film. I don't know if it was just the screening I saw, but it was warm. I mean, orangey warm. Like watching a moving instagram pic that was set to increase the warm tones. The people were all fake tanned too, with almost corpse-like makeup. Given Bernie's profession, I'm hoping that was an in-joke.
Also, Matthew McConaughy. About as opposite The Lincoln Lawyer as you can get, his prosecuting Danny Buck is loud, wears oversized glasses, is a shameless self-promoter and wipes his mouth with his tie. While he's in court. He is the closest to a caricature-like-character in the film, and again I'm sure it is an in-joke, but great casting, nonetheless.
Those points aside, I loved this film and it wasn't until the very last minutes that you see Jack Black talking to the real Bernie Tiede in prison that you're reminded this is a true story. The physical similarities are startling, and it's a sobering reminder but also a stellar example of not being able to make that shit up.
8.5/10 (and Black's moustache gets 9.5/10)
I love a good story, I really do. Anything that makes you sit on the edge of your seat, shake your head in wonder or have a bit of a cry, I'm in. Done well, a story - be it in play, movie, book or TV show format, can be transfixing. Fiction usually forms the basis of these gripping tales but every now and then, fact is indeed stranger than fiction. Bernie is a prime example of this - to the point where you totally forget you're watching a true story. And, apparently writer and director Richard Linklater only took minor liberties with the story, which makes this movie even more interesting.
Using supporting characters to give the story retrospectivity works really well in this instance - and these yokels are subtly hilarious. A mix of old timers, minxy old ladies and bitchy white trash flesh out the backstory about how Bernie came to be in Carthage, Texas. I don't know if, like Best in Show, they're adlibbing but my god, they're funny. However, and this is key to Bernie's success, they're never caricatures. You can imagine running into them at the local if you ever wander into East Texas.
Through them, we learn that Bernie Tiede (Jack Black) arrived in Carthage and started work at the local funeral directors. It was through his work there that the townspeople start falling in love with him - the kindness, attentiveness, and care he shows their deceased endear him to them and his boss loves him because he's a charming upseller of caskets. He sings at services and follows up with care packages to the elderly widows. He also stars in local musicals, coaches little league teams and is generally super nice.
So nice in fact, that he persists with keen friendliness towards super bitch Marjorie Nugent (Shirley Maclaine) - the widow of the richest man in town and, in one observer's words "Not nice to a great extent, she was just evil." Shirley was made for this role, and you can tell she's enjoying herself. As she accepts Bernie's kindness and their friendship develops, she seems to become more gentle - to him anyway. They dine together, see concerts, go all over the world holidaying as only an oil baron's widow can. Bernie begins benefiting from her wealth by becoming her power of attorney (she's alienated all her family and hadn't had a friend in years) and becomes more and more indebted to her, through her guilt and his own polite niceness, until he's literally at her beck and call with a mobile phone and a pager for her to contact him, wherever and whenever he's not with her.
The town is abuzz and slightly scandlised by this friendship, and gossip abounds about the nature of it - is it sexual? Is he using her or she using him? In a sign of how little anyone in Carthage cares about her, when Marjorie goes unseen for some months, the only person who takes an interest is her accountant. When Bernie is arrested for her murder, no one in town can believe that he did it. Except Danny Buck, (Matthew McConaughy) who insists on moving the trial to a town where Bernie would most definitely be believed a murderer (and rightly so, as we see him shoot her in the back. (And no, that wasn't a spolier).
Jack Black is fantastic; but the way he plays Bernie is, at first, a little too sweet. I mean, at the beginning of the movie, he's whistling as he drives through a forest while the birds are singing, for goodness sake. As we learn more about him, he continues to be.....nice. And when Marjorie basically rips out his spine and makes him her lackey, he's still just as polite. But then, he is Southern.
Black also plays him just camp enough - the overall speculation that Bernie's gay is a not-subtle underlying factor in the film. It's spelt out quite clearly that he doesn't date the local women, and that he enjoys the singing and dancing and cooking a little too much. The suspicion about his interest in Marjorie for her money only is hardly addressed but neither is the possibility of them being anything other than companions. Even after his arrest, Black plays Bernie with such sympathy and MacLean plays Marjorie so nasty that even though you've seen him kill her, you want him to get away with it. Let's face it, someone was going to do the bitch in, and it may as well have been Bernie.
I have to make mention of a couple of things that made me laugh, and I'm really hoping they were intentional. Firstly, the visual tone of the film. I don't know if it was just the screening I saw, but it was warm. I mean, orangey warm. Like watching a moving instagram pic that was set to increase the warm tones. The people were all fake tanned too, with almost corpse-like makeup. Given Bernie's profession, I'm hoping that was an in-joke.
Also, Matthew McConaughy. About as opposite The Lincoln Lawyer as you can get, his prosecuting Danny Buck is loud, wears oversized glasses, is a shameless self-promoter and wipes his mouth with his tie. While he's in court. He is the closest to a caricature-like-character in the film, and again I'm sure it is an in-joke, but great casting, nonetheless.
Those points aside, I loved this film and it wasn't until the very last minutes that you see Jack Black talking to the real Bernie Tiede in prison that you're reminded this is a true story. The physical similarities are startling, and it's a sobering reminder but also a stellar example of not being able to make that shit up.
8.5/10 (and Black's moustache gets 9.5/10)
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Comment by Linh
Celluloid Fun
Saw 'Bernie' on the weekend and loved it!
This review (from Anna, I think) is very good and I agree that "Shirley was made for this role" !
Cheers,
Linh
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness
Nice work Anna - your most popular article
Thanks for visiting Linh
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
Big fan of Linklater and Shirley is amusing in the right roles.
Comment by Jason King
Sydney Table
Salty Popcorn
Total Randomness