Eulogy

When the patriarch of a dysfunctional family dies, his sons and daughters travel with their families to the funeral. While they stay in the house of the matriarch waiting for the funeral and the testament, secrets are exposed and wounds are opened in the relationships of the members.

Watching "Eulogy" for the second time, I found it a funny dark comedy. The humor is not easy, but the great cast has good performance and there are many cynical situations. The Brazilian title misleads the viewer. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil) : "Um Funeral Muito Louco" ("A Very Crazy Funeral")

Eulogy is centered around the death of a family patriarch, Edmund Collins (Rip Torn). After the death comes the funeral, which is where this story takes place, from the time of his death up until the funeral, where this quite dysfunctional family has to live together for the next few days. An ordinary cast could not have done the job that this one did. They turned what seemed to be a regular movie into a pretty funny movie. I guess it was supposed to be a dark comedy, but it was not all that dark to me. The character development was quite good, for a movie that featured so many key players, it manages to let you get to know just about everyone pretty well.

Kate Collins (Zooey Deschanel) is the granddaughter of Edmund and is asked by her grandmother to deliver the eulogy, something she was hesitant about doing, considering she really knew very little about the man. Despite her constant asking, her family could not come up with any nice stories about her grandfather to tell. Zooey is pretty much the straight (wo)man in this comedy.

Daniel Collins (Hank Azaria) is Edmund's son and Kate's father. Daniel was a child actor whose big fame came when he coined a catch phrase in a peanut butter commercial, making him Edmund's favorite son. He and Skip Collins (Ray Romano) were my favorite characters.

Skip Collins is Edmund's son and Kate's uncle. Skip was the son who was always trying to get his father's attention and felt he was the unloved one because of Daniel's success. He was probably the funniest character in the movie, along with his twin sons and Daniel.

The twin sons of Skip are named Fred and Ted Collins (Curtis and Keith Garcia). They are at that age where pretty much everything turns them on, so when their aunt and her "lifemate" showed up, it was all fun for them.

There are many more characters and dysfunctional family situations here that I could not get to them all in a short review, but this movie turned out better than I would have thought and is worth watching at least once. 7/10

I work for a large video chain. I see so much product come on a weekly basis. And quite frankly, a lot of it is crap! I try to choose carefully. I look at the cover art, I read synopsis, I follow film production. I took this home and ended up watching it at 10:30 at night thinking I'll check it out a bit then go to bed. I ended up watching the whole thing. Now look, I'm not a film critic, a journalist, or pretentious film snob. I just know when I like something and if it works. I laughed my @*% off. That cast was a dream. Piper Laurie was wonderful as the matriarch of this goof ball family. I sat watching matching up personalities with my own family members. It's impossible not to. I won't go into story details. Just check it out. I think you will be glad you did.

I went into this film with high expectations considering the amazing cast and wasn't disappointed. It was consistently entertaining -- and often explosively funny.

Sometimes it felt like a throwback screwball comedy other times the comedy was more subtle and nuanced but it was always fun. Looked like it was gonna get a touch overly sentimental at the end but managed to bleach the saccharin out of the most "emotional" moments. A welcomed little performance piece film full of nice little moments.

If Hollywood stopped making films about dysfunctional families there'd be a real drought in the theaters and on DVD shelves. "Eulogy" is a pretty conventional tale but it's well-acted.

The paterfamilias, grandfather, is dead, apparently by his own hand, and the family - immediate and extended - arrives at the grieving widow's home to prepare for the funeral immediately resuming hostilities over well-aged feuds and hurts. Nothing surprising here.

Zooey Deschanel as Kate is a college student who seems to be the most normal member of an eclectic and eccentric crew. Her grandmother is Piper Laurie and, have no fear, those who remember the beautiful young actress of an earlier Silver Screen age won't recognize her here. How the mighty have...aged.

Hank Azaria has a fun(ny) role as a loser with a heart.

Deborah Winger turns in a first-rate performance as Kate's shrewish Aunt Alice who exudes homophobia at a sister who arrives with her fiancé (or fiancée), a sharp, observant woman. Alice, is married to a drone who without barely a word smiles ceaselessly and seems on the verge of drooling.

Their three kids are also silent, probably disturbed big time. And two nasty pre-teen twins of Alice's brother make Dennis the Menace a choir boy by comparison.

No character here that hasn't been seen in many movies and TV sitcoms. But there's a thread of drama with the zany comedy that makes "Eulogy" a mite different if whacked out family stories intrigue you.

It's an ensemble production - see the IMDb.com main page for the full cast. But Ms. Deschanel, with her dark eyes and sharp takes at her family members' antics, is the acting center of the flick.

8/10 (barely but I laughed a lot).