Glasgow Film Festival 2013: 'Bernie' review

★★★★☆

Based on a true story, Richard Linklater's wonderfully offbeat 2011 comedy Bernie offers a comfortable, engaging window into the almost Twin Peaks-style small American town of Carthage. Located 'behind the pine curtain' in east Texas, Carthage is populated by a host of garrulous souls who provide the narration of Bernie, often playing themselves in moments of dramatic reconstruction in this crowd-pleasing docudrama at Glasgow Film Festival. Jack Black stars as the eponymous Bernie Tiede, an Assistant Funeral Director who takes great pride in his work of beautifying the recently deceased for their final public engagement.

After moving to Carthage, Bernie soon becomes a popular figure in the town thanks to his kind nature and community spirit. In particular, Bernie seems to have a knack for befriending older widows whose husbands' funerals he has overseen, leading him to become the only ally and confidant of Majorie Nugent (played with trembling rage by Shirley MacLaine). They take trips together, all over the world; she bankrolls his community efforts.

In contrast to her pal Bernie, Mrs. Nugent is widely disliked in the town, leading to an understandable division of loyalties when Bernie murders his benefactor in a fit of unhappiness. This division is not amongst the populace, but between the people and the law, represented by the swaggering DA, Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey). McConaughey continues to mine his recent vein of good work as the clean-cut, attention-seeking Buck, a man whose commitment to getting Bernie convicted puts him at odds with the people upon whom he relies for re-election. Really, the film is jointly owned by Black - whose winning performance may be the best of his career - and the people of Carthage.

The townsfolk's steadfast support of Bernie is both shocking and heartwarming, and the way they vocalise that support is witty and touching in equal measure. As the credits roll, more testimonials by the townsfolk of Carthage appear. Almost every audience member in my Saturday night screening at the Glasgow Film Festival stayed in their seats through to the end of the credits; a tribute to just how effective Linklater's tactic of self-presentation was.

Linklater has been consistently excellent over the course of his career, with mainstream successes like School of Rock (2003) nestled in among esoteric experiments like Waking Life (2001) and the masterly Philip K. Dick adaptation A Scanner Darkly (2006). Bernie may be something of a minor piece in a filmography as rich as Linklater's, likely to be overlooked in favour of the upcoming Before Midnight (2013), but it deserves to be seen and loved as widely as possible.

The 2013 Glasgow Film Festival runs from 14-24 February. For more of our GFF coverage, simply follow this link.

David Sugarman