Okay, I admit it : I still like Richard Linklater. Always have and, at this point, probably always will. I dig the hell out of 90s classics like Slacker and Dazed And Confused. I thought A Scanner Darkly was one of the best sci-fi and best animated films in years. And yes, I even enjoy Before Sunrise and Before Sunset (especially the first one). Heck, even School Of Rock is pretty fun stuff all these years later. Sure, my guy Richard was overthrown in a silent coup as the coolest filmmaker working in the Capitol city of Texas some years ago by Robert Rodriguez (or so I’m told), but he’ll always be “Mr. Austin” in my book. And you know what? It pleases me to report that his latest directorial effort (for which he also co-wrote the screenplay), Bernie, shows him to be in fine form.
This little slice of low-key near-perfection centers on the true story of one Bernie Tiede (Jack Black in a phenomenal performance that sees him absolutely inhabiting the character, and also gives him numerous chances to showcase his singing voice on-screen for the first time in years), the more-than-likely-homosexual assistant funeral director of the only mortuary in the small East Texas town of Carthage who seems to take a rather unwholesome interest in comforting the sorrows of the elderly widows he naturally makes the acquaintance of in his line of work, particularly the wealthy ones. He hits the jackpot, so to speak, with Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine, who we just flat-out don’t get to see enough of anymore, and who ably proves she hasn’t lost a step at all here), the less-than-grieving inheritor of the local bank, who everyone in town seems to regard as a grade-A bitch. Hell, her own siblings, children, and grandchildren don’t even have anything to do with her.
She takes a liking to Bernie, though, who proves more than willing to step in and essentially handle all her affairs, both business and personal — but eventually, of course, she proves too much for even a guy of his apparently infinite patience and courtesy to deal with. The Bernie-Marjorie relationship is a complex one, certainly not romantic in nature (that would be too simple), but miles away from the expected gigolo-and-his-mark pairing that you would expect in a film about a guy who kills the old woman he’s living with shortly after she bequeaths him all her assets in her will (I guess I should say “whoops” at this point, but I honestly don’t think I’m giving anything away here). Instead, what we’ve got here in an evolving personal partnership that goes from “get the hell out of my face” to genuine acceptance to warm companionship to the kind of mental and spiritual cruelty and barely-disguised contempt that only over-familiarity can engender. Marjorie goes from wanting nothing to do with her too-damn-friendly would-be best friend to liking him enough to have him accompany her on all her travels to trusting him enough to take care of all her financial dealings to jealously monopolizing all his time and cutting him off from everyone and everything he loves (he’s big into community theater and being everybody in town’s best friend) so she can set him to work on the most trivial and dehumanizing of tasks.
So, yeah — eventually Bernie snaps and shoots her four times in the back before putting her body in a meat freezer and going around pretending she’s still alive (and spending her money) for as long as he can. Eventually the gig is up, though, as hard-charging, publicity-hungry, ultra-homophobic DA Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey, for once not trading on his looks at all and clearly relishing the chance to tackle a role 180 degrees away from his typicalfare) digs in his heels when he smells a rat with Bernie’s “she’s had a stroke and is in a rest home” stories and decides to throw the book at the guy when a search warrant of her home finally reveals Marjorie’s gruesome final resting place.
There’s a catch, though — even though he confessed almost immediately to the murder, the townsfolk wither actively don’t want to believe that Bernie could do such a thing, or they just flat-out don’t care. He’s been recklessly foolish with the old widow’s money, after all, financing the construction of a new addition at the local Methodist church, buying up struggling businesses, treating people to new cars, spoiling their kids with expensive gifts, etc. — so naturally, they all love the guy more than ever. And they never had much time for old Mrs. Nugent in the first place.
It’s in capturing this dichotomy of “normal” life in a hick town “behind the Pine Curtain” followed by how desperate these simple folks are to maintain that sense of normalcy once the balance of their entire collective reality has been upset that Linklater really shines, even utilizing many actual Carthage locals to do documentary-style? interview bits talking about how much they still think the world of Bernie no matter what he might have done. Hell, many still desperately cling to the notion that he’s absolutely innocent despite his own hardly-coerced confession.? It’s a pretty quietly amazing thing to behold, and is handled with an unforced naturalism that retains sensitivity for the town’s situation without ever crossing the line into syrupy sentimentality. In short, Linklater treats this material, and the people involved with it, with the respect they deserve without ever once going to any extra lengths to make them look either quaint, folksy, or stupid. They just are who they are, and this flick is what it is. Sure, it’s a heavily-dramatized script that probably takes a few liberties with the facts, but it feels utterly authentic and he lets? both the story and its players speak for themselves. That may not make for the flashiest of films, but it’s a refreshingly honest one, and in the midst of all the half-billion-dollar CGI-effects-laden soulless blockbusters currently polluting our screens, a quietly engaging piece of cinema that values its own integrity above all else makes for a very refreshing change of pace indeed.
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