Kris Marshall and Daisy Donovan in 'Death at a Funeral'

Kris Marshall and Daisy Donovan in 'Death at a Funeral'



Here Tudyk glories in a hilarious, largely silent performance involving one of the story's daffier plot twists. He plays a stiff businessman who, before arriving at the staid funeral of the title, inadvertently swallows a tab of homemade hallucinogens stored in a bottle labeled Valium. What ought to be a cobwebbed echo of "I Love You, Alice B. Toklas" is fresh and hysterical, thanks to Tudyk's winsome charm, sharp timing and elastic, Stan Laurel-like face. He winds up idiotically nude atop the upper-middle-class home where the funeral takes place, yet manages to make every scene he's in work, sometimes uncannily.

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"Death" is set in the ultimate occasion demanding good behavior, only to let in a hearseload of bad manners, gross mishaps and unpardonable sins. The nonsense starts when the wrong corpse is brought by the morticians. Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen, the diffident Mr. Darcy of "Pride and Prejudice)" is one son and survivor, nervously preparing the eulogy, even though his glamorous brother Robert (Rupert Graves) is a well-known novelist (and celebrity playboy) flying in from New York (character after character expresses regret that Daniel the lesser writer, will be the one to speak, all within Daniel's mortified earshot). A cousin, Martha (Daisy Donovan), is coming with her fiance, Simon (Tudyk), hoping at last he'll make a good impression on her father. Simon's nerves are the reason he takes the ersatz Valium when they pick up Martha's brother, a pharmacy student who dabbles in designer drugs.


The sibling rivalry/resolution meant to give the movie its sweet, heartfelt thread is weak, and there are stretches where the comedy sags or settles for the predictable. But, long delayed in its release because of the summer competition, "Death" arrives at last as an adult tonic in a season typically abandoned to the comic book cocktail. There are worse ways to escape the August heat.

Get showtimes and movie details for "Death at a Funeral."