Tagline: Last rites… and wrongs.
A dignified send-off for a loved one erupts into uproarious chaos when romance, jealousy, in-laws, hallucinogens, dark secrets, life-long yearnings and a spot of bold blackmail all collide in the irreverent British comedy Death at a Funeral.
Directed by Frank Oz (Bowfinger, In & Out) and featuring a cast made up of the cream of Britain’s crop, the film mischievously explores what happens on the day when a typically divided family is finally forced to come to terms with each other’s – bad behavior, outrageous faults, skeletons in the closet and all.
On the morning of their father’s funeral, the family and friends of the deceased each arrive with his or her own roiling anxieties. Son Daniel knows he will have to face his flirty, blow-hard, famous-novelist brother Robert (Rupert Graves) who’s just flown in from New York, not to mention the promises of a new life he’s made to his wife Jane.
Meanwhile, Daniel’s cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan) and her dependable new fiancé Simon (Alan Tudyk) are desperate to make a good impression on Martha’s uptight father – a plan that literally goes out the window when Simon accidentally ingests a designer drug en route to the service, leaving him prone to uncontrollable bouts of delirium and nudity in front of his potential in-laws.
The film stars Matthew Macfadyen (Pride & Prejudice), Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent, Elf), Alan Tudyk (Firefly, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story), Ewen Bremner (Trainspotting, Match Point), Rupert Graves (V for Vendetta).
Meet the Family
Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen): Son of the deceased. Still living in his parent’s house with his wife, he’s an aspiring writer who has been writing the same book for several years, largely out of fear that he’ll fail and forever live under the shadow of his supposedly brilliant brother. Swears he’s about to make big changes… if he can just get through the day of the funeral.
Robert (Rupert Graves): Daniel’s brother. A renowned yet notably narcissistic writer who “prefers not to get close to people,” he’s just flown in from New York, where he leads a rich-andfamous lifestyle well beyond his means.
Peter (Peter Dinklage): The mystery guest. This unexpected American harbors a secret that will turn the entire proceedings upside down.
Martha (Daisy Donovan): Daniel and Robert’s first cousin. She’s utterly in love with her fiancé, Simon, but her hopes that he’ll be able to impress her snobby father are dramatically dashed when Simon has a mishap that turns him into a raving, naked madman.
Simon (Alan Tudyk): Martha’s fiancé. An uptight, hardworking, sensible young lawyer who is suddenly none of those things when he accidentally ingests a designer drug just before the funeral.
Troy (Kris Marshall): Martha’s brother. This clever, cool chemistry student with a talent for creating potent hallucinogens becomes the catalyst for Simon’s unexpected “trip.”
Howard (Andy Nyman): Daniel’s friend. A nervous hypochondriac, Howard is ruminating over a rash, or possible “pigment mutation,” he fears could spell his own demise.
Justin (Ewen Bremner): Howard’s friend, who has come to the funeral entirely in the hopes of winning over Martha, with whom he had what for her was a one-night mistake and for him has become an obsession.
Jane (Keeley Hawes): Daniel’s wife. Practical, down to earth, loving and supportive of her husband, but knows what she wants – to be out of her mother-in-law’s house for good.
Sandra (Jane Asher): Daniel and Robert’s mother. Wife of the deceased, she is at a loss over what to do now, but in the meanwhile, she’s rather enjoying her moment in the spotlight.
Victor (Peter Egan): Sandra’s brother and Martha’s father. A wealthy doctor, he considers himself above most people, especially Martha’s boyfriends.
Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan): The elder statesmen of the family, he’s cantankerous, impatient, lacks all social graces and he is convinced something strange is going on at the funeral.
About the Production
“Who is that naked man on the roof?” — Mourner at the Funeral
A runaway hit at the Aspen Comedy Film Festival, and winner of the festival’s coveted Cinemax Audience Award, DEATH AT A FUNERAL pushes the British comedy into edgy modern territory – transforming the taboo into the side-splittingly screwball. This sharp, snappy, ultimately uplifting tale about the outrageous perils and unexpected pleasures of family affairs is perhaps fittingly directed by an English-born American: Frank Oz.
Oz, who began his career as a puppeteer for Jim Henson and created the iconic Yoda in George Lucas’ Star Wars series, went on to direct a series of buoyant Hollywood comedies including Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Steve Martin and Michael Caine; What About Bob with Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfus; and Bowfinger with Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy.
With DEATH AT A FUNERAL, Oz returns to his roots with an ensemble comedy in which each and every character brings his or her own mordantly funny comic twist. The title itself reveals the story’s satirical set-up, but as the film explores both family rites and family wrongs, it is the way in which Daniel and Martha – the son and nephew of the deceased – find their way through the unruly funeral’s shocks and revelations, that makes the film not only hilarious but heartfelt. It was the screenplay by rising young British writer Dean Craig – a bold, refreshingly contemporary, no-holds-barred take on the traditional British farce – that first grabbed Oz’s attention.
“This was that very rare script where you really laugh out loud, and that’s the acid test,” says Oz. “When I found out how young Dean Craig is I was truly surprised because he has the instincts of a classic craftsman. The structure is rooted in farce, but has its own youthful intelligence and sense of humor. It was so funny, I really couldn’t say no.”
“The combination of Dean Craig’s hilarious characters and situations with Frank Oz’s sophisticated comedic instincts was destined to create something quite unique,” says William Horberg, President of Production at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, who stepped forward in the early stages to put the film into production.
Producer Larry Malkin, who along with Horberg, Share Stallings and Diane Philips took the project from script to screen, recalls the thrill of Oz’s initial reaction. “We were very thankful he said yes. In the first conversations we had with Frank, he talked about how DEATH AT A FUNERAL is very British but it’s also very universal with characters and family complications to which everyone can relate – and from that moment forward, that idea has guided almost every decision on this film,” Malkin notes. “Frank took the material and truly ran with it. It became a delightful modern farce about those moments when life goes completely awry and mayhem ensues but there is also reconciliation.”
For Oz, the non-stop humor at the heart of this somber occasion emerges out of all the human yearning that gets mixed up in it – including a son trying not to be seen as a failure even as every single aspect of the funeral goes up in flames; and a daughter hoping to impress her father with her sensible fiancé, who has accidentally ingested a hallucinogen that turns him into a raving, naked madman.
“It’s the heightening desperation of things that makes the story so funny,” observes Oz. “Everybody at the funeral wants something in their own lives and the way all their wants get intermingled and bump up against one another creates a situation filled with comic possibilities.”
Another aspect of the film’s comedy comes from the taboo-filled nature of funerals, which, amidst the emotional solemnity, are also often filled with things that can’t be, or shouldn’t be, said. “It’s one of those situations where you’re not supposed to talk, where you’re supposed to hold everything in.
But of course, the harder you hold things in, the worse it can get,” notes Oz. We’ve probably all had that experience of getting the giggles at the very moment you’re not supposed to. It’s a natural kind of human reaction, and it’s at the heart of DEATH AT A FUNERAL’S comedy.”
Indeed, screenwriter Dean Craig confesses that he didn’t even set out to write a farce at first. Rather, as he started writing about a family gathering for a funeral, the story’s humor built on itself as each of the characters began pursuing their own agendas and seeking their own form of familial redemption within just a few revelation-filled hours.
The inspiration for the film came to Craig, not surprisingly, while he himself was at a troubleprone funeral. “It was my grandfather’s funeral a few years ago,” Craig explains. “It was a very somber and difficult event, but with inappropriate things happening. It was all so incongruous that it got me thinking that this actually could be quite an interesting setting for a black comedy. I was also thinking about that powerful feeling at funerals that, while everything is centered around a death, there is also this over-riding sense that life goes on. So I created characters who, even in the midst of the funeral, are very obsessed with the paths of their own lives. I was just writing what came naturally.”
What seemed to come naturally to Craig was also a fresh mixture of classically clever screwball antics with a more contemporary, bold mischievousness and character-driven hilarity. “What we loved about the script is that it’s definitely in the tradition of great farce movies like Arsenic and Old Lace and Ladykillers, but it’s also clearly written by a young man,” says producer Share Stalling. “It springs from those fantastic roots but it’s feels very new and modern. There are very few scripts like this one.”
Craig was especially thrilled when he learned that Frank Oz was going to helm the movie. “He’s really one of the best comedy directors anywhere, isn’t he? It’s not just that he’s so experienced, it’s also that he’s got a great sense of humor and he really gets it,” he says.
The filmmakers were also pleased to find the movie a home at Sidney Kimmel Entertainment (SKE), which is rapidly becoming renowned for its vibrantly diverse, high-quality slate. “SKE really supported us in every way,” says Share Stalling. “They supported us in coming to England and they basically said, Frank, this is your movie, you cast it the way you want. And the result is a cast that really feels like a family that belongs together.”
Death at a Funeral (2007)
Directed by: Frank Oz
Starring: Matthew Macfadyen, Rupert Graves, Ewen Bremner, Peter Dinklage, Daisy Donovan, Alan Tudyk, Kris Marshall, Keeley Hawes, Jane Asher, Andy Nyman
Screenplay by: Dean Craig
Production Design by: Michael Howells
Cinematography by: Oliver Curtis
Costume Design by: Natalie Ward
Art Direction by: Matthew Robinson, Andy Tomlinson
Music by: Murray Gold
MPAA Rating: R for language and drug content.
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release Date: August 17, 2007
Visits: 76
