Review: Bernie (12A)

Based on the true story of an effete Texan mortician who befriended a testy old widow and enjoyed her largesse even after she vanished off the scene, Bernie is a strange movie about a very strange man. In the small town of Carthage, everyone loved Bernie Tiede. He was a caring, give-it-all darling to the elderly who made sure a funeral was a sing-a-long celebration of the loved and lost.

Tongues started wagging when he hooked up with Marjorie Nugent (played as a feisty old buzzard by Shirley MacLaine), a wealthy widow mourning her recently deceased husband.

The whole town wondered at their closeness. But Bernie was a nice man, not the type to take advantage. So when people stopped seeing Marjorie around no-one suspected Bernie when he told them she was ill at home.

Neither a straight comedy nor a whodunit, this star-packed oddity – Matthew McConnaughey plays the headline-grabbing district attorney who, sets out to nail his man – resembles a TV movie: a portrait of a bustling backwater where the net curtains are always rustling.

Jack Black plays Bernie as a camp Mr Fixit. He gives an odd performance but then Bernie Tiede was a decidedly odd man – a tubby loner who existed within his own bubble. The bubble burst when he became involved with mean-spirited Marjorie.

As directed by Richard (Me and Orson Welles) Linklater Bernie brings to vivid reality the various peccadilloes of small-town life.

On staggered release