Friday 27 February 2015

Death at a Comedy

I originally started writing this as a Facebook post. When I got several hundred words in I realised that it'd probably be better suited here, resurrecting this old blog type thing. Here goes...

This evening I decided to conduct an experiment. I just watched both versions of Death at a Funeral back-to-back, starting with the original.

It was not a pleasant experience, in the same way that it’s not nice to come home after a pleasant day at the zoo to find someone has set fire to your dog and nailed it to your front door.

The original British version is a charming farcical comedy, reminiscent of the classic Ealing comedies. Just the right combination of English restraint and eccentricity, starring a strong line up of stars from British and American character comedy. It’s genteel and absurd at the same time, and yes, it manages to tug the heartstrings at the end. It’s not perfect, but it’s full of stubborn, pompous, arrogant, flawed but intricately performed characters, because the actors all knew and understood that the comedy lies in how those characters react to the absurdity around them, not in the absurdity itself. In short, it’s very, very good.

The American remake is comprised of a cast of people who are either stand-up comedians who are not known for being capable actors, or capable actors with little grasp of farcical comedy. One particular character is played by Alan Tudyk in the original, someone who can imbue any piece of shit character in any piece of shit film in which he appears with genuine likeability and charm. In the remake the role goes to a game but woefully unsuitable James Marsden, the poster boy for earnest blandness. He tries ever so hard, bless him.

And Chris Rock plays the straight man of the story.

Yes, that’s right. Loud, shouty, forthright Chris Rock plays the uptight, tense and awkward straight man. I imagine in the director’s next film he plans to one-up himself in the miscasting stakes by choosing Sir Ian Mckellen to star in a biopic of The Ultimate Warrior.

As a result of the miscasting, the film is peppered throughout by a ridiculous amount of expository padding. Padding that would be unnecessary if they had cast actors who could convey the minutiae of their roles instead of painting with very broad strokes. Minor characters who appear in the original to drive the narrative of more prominent ones have to be given additional and redundant back story, simply because the leaden actor portraying them would be otherwise incapable of conveying the sympathetic aspects of the character. Additional plot threads are introduced that reduce supporting female characters to stereotypical baby-obsessed weirdos rather than characters with personalities and feelings in their own right. The slightly sleazy one who spends half the film lusting after a jailbait girl half his age actually gets the girl in the remake, just so that he has a payoff in the story, no matter how creepy and unpleasant that payoff makes him look.

Moreover, because of all this padding the comedy that still could have worked doesn’t, because anything that should have been given adequate time to breathe and unfold is either rushed through or skirted over, so that nothing gets the time it needs to be genuinely funny. Everyone is in a hurry to get through the scene and to the reaction shots because that’s where the director thinks the jokes are.

That’s not where the jokes are. That’s where the punchlines are, and punchlines are comedy punctuation, not comedy itself. They don’t work without the prep time.

And because nobody is delivering anything that could be described as a characterful performance, the way they respond to the situations that unfold around them couldn’t seem more insincere if they tried. Everyone seems to be just ticking off scenes in their heads and not putting the effort in. Even accomplished veterans like Keith David and Danny Glover seem to be phoning it in, their characters delivering lines and buggering off, rather than being situationally aware of anything around them.

One of the defining attributes of farce is in the situational awareness of the characters and in their increasingly futile attempts to prevent it from catching the attention of those who are unaware of it. It’s built using similar techniques as you use to build tension in a thriller, and successful farce will have the audience biting their nails and cringing as things escalate. That falls flat if everyone approaches their scenes as if they’re self contained and have no context beyond themselves.

But then what could we expect? The original was directed by Frank Oz, a man who has spent decades learning the craft of comedy. The remake is directed by Neil LaBute, the same guy that did the Nicholas Cage version of The Wicker Man.

Cocking up American remakes of excellent British films is what he does best, it seems.