Reader Recommends: Death at a Funeral (2007)

Today I took the recommendation of one of my best friends to watch the original British version of Death at a Funeral. It came out in 2007, and was actually remade and re-released in 2010 for American audiences. But that's not the one I saw. It was insisted to me that I watch the 2007 release. So that's exactly what I did. I had heard this movie was quite good, but what I was most interested in was the fact that Peter Dinklage and Alan Tudyk were both in this. I generally love them in whatever they're in, so I couldn't wait to see what their roles would be here! More after the jump!


There isn't too much to say about the story. A large family is gathering for the funeral of a family member. He's a husband and father, a brother and an uncle. His son Daniel has been given the task of reading the eulogy, even though Daniel's brother Robot is a successful and famous novelist already. The stress to impress is heavy, but everything is about to get a whole lot worse with a mysterious guest, a cranky grandfather, and some drug issues floating about.

Simply put, this movie is hilarious! It has quite a large cast, and a lot of small side stories all going on but intertwining together. It wasn't a perfect movie, but any issues I had with it were minor, and at least for me, easily looked past. It's surprising though, that I can look past them, considering what those issues were though. Or maybe it just says something about the rest of the film.

The real star of the movie, Alan Tudyk, needs to be in everything!

These "issues" I keep alluding to are that I didn't really like some of the characters. I thought they did an alright job as far as actual acting goes, but I just didn't like them. The characters in particular are those of the two brothers, Daniel and Robert. The character of Daniel, who is played by Matthew Macfadyen was just boring, and dull as far as I was concerned. I didn't care about most of his issues or personal problems, and he's supposed to be the main character! Robert, played by Rupert Graves, was just a jerk and also suffered from the uninteresting illness. I think the problem in this case is more that there were so many other more interesting characters, that not enough time could be spent building up his character. But that's OK with me, because the other characters simply stole the show for me.

The best part of the movie really was in the side characters, specifically Alan Tudyk's character of Simon. You see, Simon is very nervous to have to meet his future Father-in-law while at the funeral. While picking up another guest, who happens to be a drug-dealer, his fiance gives him what she thinks is Valium. Turns out it's something completely different, and the real star of the entire movie is born! Every single thing he did was funny, and every scene he was in he outright stole, and then slapped the other actors in the face with it.

Peter Dinklage also needs to be in far more movies!

Another great actor in the movie was Peter Dinklage. He played a character, oddly also named Peter. He wasn't necessarily funny himself, but the situation revolving him is quite hilarious. An interesting side note, when they remade the movie for America, he reprised his role, only this time named Frank.

The next best character in the movie came courtesy of Andy Nyman. For his part, he basically keeps getting stuck taking care of the grandfather character, as well as some of the other insane situations that are going on. I last saw him in a zombie BBC mini-series called Dead Set, but I wasn't really impressed with him in that. He was basically just the worst jerk on Earth in that, but here he's a nice guy who gets stuck in these awful situations, and he just kept me laughing.

That's pretty much all there is I have to say. As a pure comedy movie, there's no need to talk about special effects or action or anything like that. Everything hinges on the jokes, the actors, and their characters, with nothing else to prop it up if it fails to stand on it's own. Luckily it has some great actors, and a genuinely funny, if terribly awkward situation to keep it standing strong. Even though I didn't like the main characters, they have equal screen time to many other people, and overall less screen time compared to all the great actors put together. So really, it didn't matter that they weren't the most interesting, because there were plenty of other people to be that instead. If you haven't seen Death at a Funeral, I definitely recommend it. But remember, this is the British 2007 version that I saw, I can't speak to the quality of the remake.