Eulogy

The epitome of the ultimate
dysfunctional family gets together for the death of their grandpapa and needless
to say…zaniness, further dysfunction (most of which has to do with sex) and
Ray Romano in a porno mustache…ensues.

This film felt half-cooked. The cast is massive,
the premise is a decent one – essentially a black comedy surrounding the death
(and actual funeral) of the family grandpop – but ultimately, the film just
didn’t have enough great humor to qualify as anything more than a lazy weekend
video rental for those who appreciate the darker side of comedies. Even then, it
only lasts about 80 minutes and doesn’t really offer any major laughs (other
than Ray Romano’s breakdown vis-à-vis his father, after which he just looks
at the joint in his hand and says “That’s some good shit”), with some
pretty basic jokes through most of the film, and what seemed to me, a lot of
purposely over-the-top scenarios whereby two sets of lesbians actually worked
their way into the movie (alright, we get it…“movie lesbos” are hot…haha),
one of the kids finds out that their mom used to be a porn actress and pretty
much every single person in the film likes to smoke up. Ooooouuuuuh. I don’t
know…it was like they were trying too hard to be different, not allowing the
audience to get into a more realistic edge, so that the humor would be funnier
(it’s like Homer Simpson once said, “It’s funny because it’s true!”).
How true can it be that a father take his two 11-year old boys into a closet at
night, in order to peek over a lesbian couple? That said, I did appreciate a
handful of bits in the film, particularly the aforementioned dad of the two
young kids, played very well by Ray Romano (good move on playing as part of an
ensemble and against type), as well as the two boys themselves, who probably had
some of the film’s best lines (despite being unbelievable, considering their
age).

I’m also a big fan of Zooey Deschanel, and she
pretty much starred in this film, so it wasn’t too difficult a task following
her around most of the time. The lesbian couples were fine, but seemed too
gimmicky after a while. The family’s widow was also a little too over-the-top
versus the rest of the family, with a horrible CGI sequence featuring her
jumping out of a van completely taking me out of the film (not that I was that
into it by that point anyway). The film’s finale also attempts to get a little
“mushy”, but by that point, there has been so much ridiculousness going on,
that you can’t help but not believe a word of any of it (most of it also
occurs as the dead man’s body is being pushed into a river on a rowboat while
two kids are attempting to blow it up with fire-arrows). All in all, I’d
recommend this film only to those who appreciate dark humor, but even then, the
film really doesn’t have too many great laughs, goes by a little too fast, and
despite featuring a number of engaging actors (maybe too many!), not enough
memorable sequences to pay good money to see on the big screen. THE ROYAL
TENENBAUMS…this is not.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian