Death at a Funeral

Death at a Funeral (2007) takes place at a funeral in an English country house. The coffin goes to the wrong address, the groom accidentally takes a hallucinogen, and during the service a man nobody knows turns up with something to say about the deceased. The family tries to keep it quiet and everything gets worse. The structure is classical English farce: one location, escalating lies, fresh disasters coming through the door. Frank Oz directed. He is American and came out of the Muppets, but he made this with a wholly British cast at Ealing Studios in London, itself a home of the classic period of exactly this kind of comedy. Matthew Macfadyen, Rupert Graves and Peter Dinklage star. Its strangest sequel came in America. Just three years later, in 2010, Neil LaBute remade the same script with Chris Rock, Tracy Morgan and Martin Lawrence. Peter Dinklage played the same role a second time, though the character was renamed Frank rather than Peter. It cost nine million dollars and grossed 46.8 million worldwide, but only 8.6 million in North America, and that American shortfall is why the remake happened. It runs 91 minutes. Good for: English farce, funeral comedy, and ensemble playing. Less good for: the humour runs largely on embarrassment and some scenes are uncomfortable. The body of the dwarf character is the subject of several jokes that play badly now. A number of the gags are predictable.