104 minutes. Rated PG-13.
“There are people in town, honey, that woulda shot her for five dollars.”
In 1996, a well-liked undertaker named Bernie Tiede shot his wealthy 81-year old companion, Marjorie Nugent, to death with a rifle. After hiding her body in a freezer, he proceeded to convince the residents of their home town of Carthage, Texas that Marjorie was alive and well in seclusion. Her reputation was so bad and Bernie was so popular that nobody questioned her absence for nine months.
Fifteen years later, they made a movie about it.
Bernie follows in the recent de-evolution of the documentary from balanced reportage to perspective pic. Not that I’m complaining. Some of the most entertaining films of the past decade have been quasi-documentaries. Sicko and Supersize Me are both solid, interesting films and neither is a documentary in anything other than name (my biggest problem with the perspective pic genre is its own blatant self-denial: these are NOT documentaries; documentaries are balanced and without perspective. They’re generally far less entertaining than the average biased screed.)
Bernie is at least frank about its status as a fictionalized (therefore, at least potentially skewed) ballad of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black). However, the attempt to give the film a documentary patina was a bad idea in this context. Heavy reliance on interviews of residents of Carthage gives Bernie a gossipy feel that is consistently interrupted by spotty acting on the part of Black and the supporting cast (Shirley MacLaine, who plays Marjorie Nugent, is the only outstanding member of this crew). It’s not that Jack Black does a bad job, but he doesn’t always do a good job. Sometimes he’s at his best, and sometimes he just misses it completely. That’s a major flaw for a film that plays hard and fast with reality. During the confession scene, I couldn’t figure out if Bernie was sobbing his heart out or laughing his head off. Whatever he was doing, Black was really putting his heart into it, so my instinct suggests that better direction might have fixed this. The rest of the supporting cast of pro actors just tanks. In classic Hollywood fashion, they act like they’re acting. The contrast with the sincerity of the gossips is deadly.
This is a film that has a fun structure. The audience knows that the affable Bernie is doomed by the townspeoples’ commentary, which flashes in and out in classic documentary style. Watching Bernie move toward his fate between should be great fun, but the pace is jerky. One minute Bernie and Marjorie are in Russia having a great time, the next he’s whipped. Then he suddenly kills her. When I first saw the murder scene, I actually thought that it was supposed to be some kind of instant fantasy, a work-up to the final overwhelming murderous urge that the gentle Bernie would eventually succumb to. It was too quick to be believable, this transition from wuss to maniac. Again, I blame the director (Richard Linklater).
The perspective pic is always, always, always problematic. Bernie presents the perspective that the murderer was at least somewhat justified: Marjorie Nugent was a hateful crone, a harridan who basically deserved to die. The audience is meant to believe that never for a moment did the guileless Bernie consider his access to her immense wealth or his status as her heir. His persistence in their relationship was that of a confused man who couldn’t say “no.”
It’s just not believable. In fact, it’s irritating. Call it what you will–mockumentary, perspective pic, entertainment, whatever–this film purported to reference reality and instead fed the audience a facile antihero tale based on the social popularity of the murderer. That’s like celebrating the alpha jock at a high school because the nerd he picks on is annoying. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating a bad guy in cinema. But the first step to pulling it off without becoming an apologist is to first admit that he is a bad guy.
Here’s the story I got after un-spinning Bernie:
Bernie Tiede was a charismatic man who knew how to make people trust him. His faith and community spirit masked less savory aspects of his personality, including impulse control issues that sent him on buying sprees and stretched his meager budget. Though gay, he attached himself to Marjorie Nugent, a rich widow who was not well liked in their small town. He gained complete access to her finances over the course of their six-year relationship. In fact, the widow eventually both employed him and designated him her heir. Bernie was able to quit the funeral home where he worked. According to the widow’s son, Bernie embezzled at least three million dollars from his companion. Eventually, Bernie shot Marjorie, hid her body, and continued as before. He spent almost three quarters of a year successfully lying about her absence, relying on his local popularity to cover the many holes in his story. He never dumped the body and appeared to have no plan for the future. He couldn’t claim that she had disappeared. A missing persons report would have started an investigation. Even if Bernie had cleared it, he would have been forced to wait for decades as Marjorie was certified legally dead and her family contested her rewritten will.
Just sayin’.
