Get Low

Felix Bush, played by Robert Duvall, is a hermit living alone in the woods of Tennessee in the thirties, about whom the town has invented dozens of stories. One day he comes down, walks into the funeral parlour and makes a strange request: he wants his funeral held while he is still alive. And he stipulates that everyone who attends must tell the story they have heard about him. Bill Murray plays the funeral director, and the character is the film's best counterweight: a man who treats death as a business, calculates constantly, and holds himself in low regard. Sissy Spacek is the woman out of Felix's past. The story comes from a real case. Felix Bushaloo Breazeale, known locally as Uncle Bush, held his own funeral in Tennessee in 1938 and it made news across the country. Aaron Schneider's film fictionalises the event and invents a reason for why Felix wants it. Who it is for: viewers who like slow, performance-driven American drama and Duvall. Who it is not for: anyone expecting the revelation of the secret to carry the film, since the real subject is the waiting before it.