Bernie is the story of small-town assistant funeral director, Bernie Tiede. A sweeter man you are unlikely to come across. He is a pillar of the community. He works in the local theatre, he does taxes for the town's less-than-brilliant residents, and he checks in on the widows of the recently deceased on his personal time. He is essentially a saint wrapped in the paunchy exterior of Jack Black. And everybody loves Bernie. In interview cutaways, the townspeople make that abundantly clear. He's like the town mascot. And Bernie takes his work very seriously. He believes that everybody should have a wonderful send-off into the afterlife, and works diligently to ensure they do. As his boss notes, Bernie sings songs, he delivers homilies, he even releases doves by the grave sites of the deceased. He's a jack-of-all-trades amongst the recently departed. So it's no wonder when he takes an interest in Ms. Nugent, a recent widow in town played with stone cold detachment by Shirley McClaine.
If Bernie is universally beloved amongst the townsfolk, then Ms. Nugent is universally loathed. She is a mean, bitter old lady who has spent her life pissing off her neighbors. She is also rich. Filthy, stinking rich. Never to be deterred, Bernie begins his routine house-calls and after overcoming her initial resistance, begins a relationship with Ms. Nugent. They travel the world, they go to fancy restaurants and they become companions. As their time together intensifies, the townspeople start to talk. Is it an illicit love affair? Is Bernie after Ms. Nugent's money? Nobody is quite sure what to make of the pair, but they do know one thing: Bernie is a good man. They implicitly trust him so however strange it may seem, they assume the best.
Ms. Nugent becomes extremely possessive of Bernie, expecting him to drop everything to respond to her whims. Bernie obliges, but after a while it starts to wear on him. The relationship turns from strange to abusive very quickly, but Bernie, having spent large portions of Ms. Nugent's fortune, continues to play her whipping boy. He is in control of her estate and uses her money for the betterment of the community even going so far as to donate $100k for a the construction of a new wing at the church. Bernie is in the middle of a rehearsal for one of his many musicals at the local theatre one day when he is summoned by Ms. Nugent who demands his presence immediately. Bernie complies in his normal manner. As the two enter the garage, he grabs a low caliber hunting rifle from a shelf and shoots Ms. Nugent in the back 5 times in a dream-like, sureal moment of passion. Snapping back to reality, he stores her body in the freezer and cleans up the blood.
From this point forward, Bernie is forced to play a cat-and-mouse game with Ms. Nugent's former stock broker, whose suspicion is the only thing keeping Bernie's crime from being perfectly executed. Bernie continues to spend Ms. Nugent's money and tells anybody who asks about her absence that she has recently suffered a series of minor strokes and wishes to be left alone until she is fully recovered, an event which will apparently take place, oh never. When the broker finally gets a warrant to search Ms. Nugent's residence on the basis that he has not been paid his agreed upon fees, the police find Ms. Nugent's body in the deep freeze.
Enter hard ass District Attorney, Danny Buck played with typical southern charm and tenacity by Matthew McConaughey. During his investigation, it become abundantly clear that, even with Bernie's confession in hand, a conviction of the town hero is going to be no easy feat. Hell, even the local church seems to be on Bernie's side as they pray for their newly imprisoned choir director and congregation member. Buck puts in a request to have the trial location moved, an unprecedented, yet approved request. Bernie's trial begins and his fate awaits him.
Bernie is the perfect dark comedy. And it achieves this by keeping one crucial tidbit in mind- a dark comedy should be a comedy first and dark second. The adjective describes the noun. It's simple grammar, really but is so often forgotten in films like Very Bad Things, or more recently Inside Llewyn Davis. The film will have you laughing from opening credits to end credits and everywhere in between. This is in no small part thanks to Jack Black in his best performance to date. Playing the sexually ambiguous, but giant-hearted Bernie, we fall in love with him the instant he comes on screen. He is never more than harmless, with the exception of about 3 seconds, and then morphs back into this overweight do-gooder again with such seamless skill you would swear he had spoken to the real Bernie Tiede.
Speaking of which, he did! Linklater placed a few bets in this film and they paid off big time. The first was that he put Jack Black in a room with Bernie Tiede, a convicted murderer. The result, as stated above is fantastic. I've never met Bernie Tiede so I can only speculate, but I would imagine Black's performance is 90% imitation, 10% acting. He also used real townspeople from rural Carthage, TX interspersed with character actors for the cutaway interviews. And therein lies the films authenticity. The townspeople are absolutely crucial to shaping our view of Bernie. Black's performance brings us most of the way, but the townspeople validate what a lovely man he is. I'm not sure that could be replicated with actors.
On the whole, Bernie is a film I would classify as a must-see. It's simple, it's heartfelt, it's hysterical. The trio of Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey, and Shirley McClain is perfect, Linklater's direction is perfect and the town of Carthage is a place that I will be revisiting often. Check this one out.
Overall Rating-
10/10
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