REVIEW - BERNIE

Either very middle-of-the-road black comedy, or very dark commercial entertainment, Bernie is a frothy, forgettable film that dips its toes into several waters through its course, never quite taking the plunge. It's as if Richard Linklater was afraid to make too much of any one thing with his film, which is based on a true story, and decided to make a little of a lot of things. Its most prevalent impression is as insight into the social customs of the people of the small town of Carthage, Texas - in this, it is charming without being quaint, precisely attuned to the mood of the town and the attitudes of its inhabitants. Linklater uses Carthage's townspeople to stage faux-documentary interviews, and their authenticity generated a respect in me for these naive, backward-thinking people that a fully simulated, more traditional approach likely would have not. But this impression is made and expanded upon within minutes, and it cannot sustain a feature-length film such as this. Of course, there is a story here as well, and a most fascinating one indeed. One does not have to be of above-average intelligence to see where it is headed, though - Linklater's comic touch is so blunt, yet so sparingly used in the service of making one laugh, that he signals every plot development long before it occurs. Bernie is a diverting watch up until the point where Linklater stops signalling, though, which is more to do with the fact that he seems to lose interest than the fact that you may too. The promise of perversion is sustenance enough for the first hour, and Linklater's depiction of this social bubble so accurate and so thorough; the fuse has been lit, and the anticipation palpable...but Bernie gently fizzles to a close, while the story's curiosities only accumulate! Jack Black is much too broad as Bernie, but Shirley MacLaine is effortlessly convincing as Marjorie, eliciting one's sympathy as much as one's disdain.