Bernie

There is something about small towns which seem to bring out odd behaviour in people. But perhaps that is because they are easier to detect in a small town as opposed to big cities where it is easier to hide.
Bernie Tiede is a fascinating character. A man who is incredibly sweet and charming and nice to everyone he meets. His major fault is that he can see only the good in people. Bernie became friends with Marjorie Nugent, a woman who was widely disliked by everyone in the Texas town of Carthage. Despite that Bernie managed to ingratiate himself into her life in a big way. He got power of attourney on her life and would make decisions on her behalf. Bernie's niceness meant that Marjorie trusted him with her life. So it was a pity when he decided to terminate it. But there was the advantage that his trustworthiness meant he could pretend Margorie was still alive even after he had killed her.
A story like this could have been told in many different ways. I can imagine many of the details being changed to make it appeal to a broader audience and made to be a farce or broad comedy. However in the hands of Richard Linklater it has become an excellent black comedy. I am a huge fan of the black comedy genre and the darker side humour. Richard has used a kind of docu-drama approach to this story. The film is punctuated with testimonials from the real people of Carthage. This may have been because Bernie feels like a character that is too good to be true. This is an excellent technique which Richard uses because it lends weight to the story. The only problem with that is that it is only the public image we see and not the private one. We don't see how Bernie managed to become so ingrained into Marjorie's life. Why she trusted him so much. It may have been because she was so hated by everyone that here was a man who liked her despite her nasty personality. The story is the films highlight and because it comes from the behavior of the characters, that makes it so good.
If there was ever a perfect marriage of an actor to a role that would be Jack Black and Bernie Thiede. Some comedy actors like Jack do so many questionable comedic roles that people often over look them when they do something a bit more sensible. This is one such case. Jack Black is brilliant in this role. He is far more subtle in his approach than in most other roles he has taken. It definitely suits the character of Bernie. Shirley MacLaine is also nicely subtle in her performance as Marjorie. She plays the nasty character really well but does not always resort to over the top antics which mostly happens in this type of role. Equally as brilliant is Matthew McConaughey. Matthew keeps getting better in each role that he does. He does run the risk of being over shadowed by his hair in this role though.

There may not be many laugh out loud moments but this is still a brilliant comedy. For those who like their humour a bit dark