Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious & Interesting Dialogue Support this Sleeper, April 23, 2005
I thoroughly enjoyed watching EULOGY, a dark comedy about a family who is reunited when the male patriarch of the family passes away. To be honest, when I saw the cast and the well-trodden plot description, I was not expecting anything stellar. But the film exceeded my expectations and manages to find some breathing room and originality in its short 91 minutes. The plot of EULOGY, as every reviewer has described, is not complex. Director Michael Clancy manages to pull you into the dysfunctional lives of these characters and let you be a fly on the wall to their hilarious and ridiculous fights.
One interesting aspect of the film is its treatment of death. You don't always expect to have any serious message coming from a comedy, but EULOGY has one. While everyone has come to this funeral on the pretense of mourning their father, the occasion becomes a time for them all to mourn their own lives and failures. It is a natural message enough: obviously, a death in the family makes one painfully aware of one's own mortality. However, there is something added in this film. No one seems to be truly sorry to see the old man go, except the granddaughter who seems to have a distorted view of him. Perhaps, the fact that they have all gathered to "honor" the death of a man they did not openly love forces them to realize the lack of love and connection they have in their own lives. Will we be mourned at the end of our lives?
Now, I am not trying to sift EULOGY for some deep meaning or message. But hidden behind all of the comedy and the hilarious (and absurd) dialogue, there is some real emotion to be had in these scenes. Having not expected any, I was surprised and pleased by the end result. My only major criticism of the film is the forced love story between the granddaughter and an old fling of hers. It seems tacked onto the film unnaturally and serves only to snap the teenager out of her false world of mourning to join the rest of her family. If you have the opportunity to see it, I would highly recommend this film to you.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dad's dead and the family decides if it cares, April 28, 2005
The family's patriarch dies suddenly, and the splintered family hesitantly regroups to mourn the loss. With old issues and new lives firmly intact, they all attempt to put up with each other and discover their true feelings about their choices, each other and their father - played typically well, though sparingly, by Rip Torn. The cast is excellent, with always funny Hank Azaria playing a one-hit-wonder child star who can only get parts in porn movies, as the guy reacting to the others having sex. Kelly Preston plays the angry lesbian sister scorned by the other sister, played by Debra Winger. These two do a great job of hating each other and have maybe the best girl fight I've seen in a movie. Everyone else in the cast turn in good performances, including Piper Laurie as the hilariously suicidal mother, but Ray Romano surprised the hell out of me with an excellent performance that just may have shined the brightest. I haven't been a Romano fan until now.
The family relations are convoluted, the performances excellent, the writing hilarious and the ending truly surprising. Don't miss this movie.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Life in a Fish Bowl - a Family in Full View, March 13, 2005
Odd that one of the recurring themes for television series, plays, cartoons, and movies is the American dysfunctional family. Odd, and sad that what in previous years used the same concept for meaty tough dramas like, for one example, O'Neil's 'Long Days Journey into Night'. Now those same issues that used to be private and painful and not concepts that families would openly share with a public have become fodder for zany, over the top, toilet-mouthed comedies.
Such is the case for EULOGY. In essence the story is a matter a few days in the Collins family whose three generations have gathered for the funeral of the patriarch Edmund Collins (Rip Torn), each with their own issues of disenchantment with the world and each caught up in the ME FIRST pathology that precludes healthy relationships - save one: granddaughter Kate (Zooey Deschanel) daughter of ex-child actor Daniel (Hank Azaria) who seems the most solidly adjusted of the bunch and is therefore the one elected to write and speak the Eulogy for the funeral.
The Grandmother Charlotte (Piper Laurie) is suicidal (who wouldn't be in this family environment?) and the remainder of the family includes smarmy Skip (Ray Romano playing Ray Romano), Skip's twin sons Fred and Ted (Curtis and Keith Garcia), lesbian sister Lucy (Kelly Preston) and her lover Judy (Famke Janssen),
and the controllingly vile sister Alice (Debra Winger). Throw these disparate characters into the bowl, add the fishfood script by Michael Clancy (who also directs) and voila! - out comes a fast-paced, half-baked comedy that finds the audience hungry for laughter even over embarrassing choices of jokes. The cast is fleshed out with performances from Glenne Headly, Jesse Bradford, and Rene Auberjonois.
Yes, the film has its funny moments: it is sad that the comedy is always at the expense of individual character flaws that are not inherently funny. But with a cast of this quality you can be assured that the project is worth watching, if only to see the talented Debra Winger once again in action! Grady Harp, March 05
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