Death at a Funeral is a British farce about family, sibling rivalry, dark secrets, blackmail and illicit drugs. And bare bottoms. The film begins with a vaguely tired joke -- a viewer worries -- but this just makes what follows that much more delicious.

In the English countryside, Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) is preparing to bury his beloved father. Daniel's brother Robert (Rupert Graves), a successful writer, is arriving from New York for the funeral. Every-

one wonders out loud why Daniel is giving the eulogy, and not Robert, who obviously has a way with words. Years of family infighting are revealed in that running gag.

Among the mourners who turn up are cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan), her nervous boyfriend (Alan Tudyk) and Martha's brother Troy (Kris Marshall), who is a pharmacy student. Troy dabbles in the creation of illicit drugs to earn a bit of money, and he's just come up with a fairly lethal sounding combo of acid and a few other things -- and he's placed them in a bottle marked "valium."

Do we really need to elaborate?

One guest at the funeral nobody recognizes is a dark-haired dwarf (Peter Dinklage). As it happens, this stranger has had a special relationship with the deceased, and wants to talk about it with Daniel. He wants to know why he was left out of the will. Once Daniel sees the stranger's compromising photos, he gets out his chequebook.

Also pertinent to the story are Daniel's friend Howard (Andy Nyman), Howard's creepy friend (Ewen Bremner) and aged Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan), a terrible curmudgeon. By the time that "valium" bottle gets into the wrong hands, there's a naked man on the roof, an extra body in dad's casket and several people with something to hide.

Death at a Funeral is a story about characters who all slowly unravel in the best laugh-out-loud sort of way. The embarrassment that overtakes everyone is extra-powerful because all involved are so proper to begin with; you laugh at this one the same way you laugh in church -- that hysterical, forbidden giggling that just can't be stopped. Well, that's how we laugh in church, anyway.

The film is hugely politically incorrect. For all that, it never stoops to the obvious, and it never even flirts with sitcom-ish jokes or situations. Death at a Funeral has magnificent comic timing, and dark humour notwithstanding, it's a tale with a good heart. This means you could bring your granny along to see it, provided she's okay with death, nudity, fecal material jokes and drugs.

(This film is rated 14-A)
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