Death at a Funeral is a 2007 black comedy film directed by Frank Oz. The screenplay by Dean Craig focuses on a family attempting to resolve a variety of problems, whilst they attend the funeral of the patriarch.
Plot
Daniel and his wife Jane live in England with his parents, while Daniel's younger brother Robert is a renowned novelist living in New York City. The story begins on the day of their father Edward's funeral. Robert arrives, having flown first class, but declines to help finance the funeral, leaving Daniel to cover all the expenses. As guests begin to arrive, Daniel struggles to complete a eulogy, even though everyone expects Robert will be the one to deliver it.
Daniel's cousin Martha and her fiancé Simon are desperate to make a good impression on Martha's father Victor. Their hopes for doing so are dashed when Martha, hoping to calm Simon's nerves, gives him what she believes is Valium but is actually a hallucinogenic designer drug manufactured by her brother Troy, a pharmacy student.
An American man named Peter introduces himself to Daniel, who is too busy to speak to him and suggests they talk later. The service begins and the hallucinating Simon, certain he sees the coffin moving, tips it over, causing the body to spill out onto the floor. During the ensuing chaos, Simon is told why he is acting as he is, so he panics and locks himself in the bathroom. Martha tries to persuade him to open the door while fending off the unwelcome advances of Justin, with whom she had a past one-night stand that she would like to forget. Simon climbs onto the roof naked and threatens to jump.
While most of the guests are watching Simon on the roof, Peter meets privately with Daniel and Robert and reveals he was their father's lover. Unhappy that he was left nothing in their father's will, Peter shows them compromising photographs, trying to blackmail the family for £15,000. The brothers panic, bind and gag Peter, and give him what they believe is Valium to calm him down. Peter manages to free himself, but falls and hits his head on a glass coffee table. Troy and germaphobic family friend Howard believe Peter to be dead. Forced to dispose of the body as quickly and surreptitiously as possible, Daniel and Robert place it in the coffin with their father. Martha tells Simon that she is pregnant and she takes him off the roof, much to everyone's relief.
Once everyone returns, the service resumes. Daniel's awkward eulogy is interrupted when the still-alive Peter bursts out of the coffin and the photos fall out for everyone, including Daniel and Robert's mother Sandra, to see. Daniel interrupts the ensuing uproar by delivering an impromptu, heartfelt eulogy, declaring that his father may have had secrets, but he was a good man, who loved his family, and that everyone at the funeral could do worse than to follow his example.
In the evening, after all the mourners (including Peter) have gone, Robert compliments Daniel on his speech and tells him that he plans on taking their mother to New York so that Daniel and Jane can finally buy their own flat. Their conversation is interrupted when Jane tells them that Uncle Alfie had a panic attack over seeing what he thought was Peter's dead body, so she gave him some "Valium". As the brothers exchange an alarmed look, the film ends with Uncle Alfie on the roof naked, as Simon had been.
Cast
Production
The film was shot at Ealing Studios in London. It premiered at the European Film Market in February 2007 and was shown at the US Comedy Arts Festival, the Seattle International Film Festival, the Breckenridge Film Festival, the Maui Film Festival, the Sydney Film Festival, the Provincetown International Film Festival, and the Tremblant Film Festival before going into limited release in the United States on 17 August 2007. It opened throughout Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia before going into theatrical release in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2007.
Release
Critical reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 133 reviews, with an average score of 6.00/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Death At A Funeral is a rousing British farce, with enough slapstick silliness to overcome its faults." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.