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Rating: "Funeral Party" (2007)
Hailed by critics as the best English comedy of recent years (a sort of "4 Weddings and a Funeral" to be clear), "Funeral Party" by the acclaimed director Frank Oz hits the cinema screens. I personally remember him more for "What About Bob?" with a sumptuous Bill Murray than for the much more famous "In & Out."
The day is cheerful, and I allow myself to be convinced that the 10:30 PM post-training show is just the right one to end a good Monday in joyful company.
The strength of the film does not lie so much in the skill of the actors but in the strictly exaggerated story and the absurd overall situation that gradually unfolds. There is no true protagonist; instead, there are only characters, more or less normal, who in the least appropriate setting (a family member's funeral) reveal a respectable set of skeletons in the closet. Hilarious, absurd scenes, for an almost endless series of gags (not all successful), maintain a high rhythm, keeping the film vibrant and free of dead spots.
The obvious risk is that of excess, of not wanting to put an end to the most unreal and paradoxical situations that the human mind can conceive. Let it be clear that "Funeral Party" reaches (and surpasses) the limit quickly, but it does so with style in the sense that it gave me the impression of wanting to be exaggerated in every way and not having arrived at the point of gag dependence by chance. In short, for over 90 minutes, it tries to destroy the sanctity of the funeral service (and as in every English comedy, the priest also gives a nudge in the right direction), and if you embrace the perspective of a film that is desecrating and deliberately overblown in every aspect, you can have fun.
In the end, right on cue, when the film reaches the peak of trash, a quintal of thick syrup is spread on the disgustingly rhetorical and politically correct funeral eulogy monologue. Fortunately, the director does not extend the film; on the contrary, it closes quickly without giving us diabetes.
Nice and entertaining. 2 and a half stars
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