21/11
In small-town Texas, an affable mortician strikes up a friendship with a wealthy widow, though when she starts to become controlling, he goes to great lengths to separate himself from her grasp.. Real residents of Carthage, Texas who knew the real Bernie Tiede and Marjorie Nugent appear in the film providing commentary on the events.. Bernie committed the murder in 1996, yet he answers an iPhone nearly right after the murder.. Townsperson: [talking about Marjorie Nugent] She would chew your ass out at the drop of a hat. I mean, she’d rip you a brand new, three-bedroom, two-bath, double-wide asshole. No problem.. Before the main credits roll, photos of the real-life Bernie and Marjorie together are shown, along with a brief video of Bernie Teide talking with Jack Black.. According to the Technical specs link for the film, there are two different versions of this movie: one running 1 hr 39 min (99 min), and the other for 1 hr 44 min (104 min) (USA).. Featured in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Jack Black/New York City's Meatball Shop Guys/Beirut (2012). Love Lifted MeWritten by James Rowe and Howard E. SmithPerformed by The Florida BoysCourtesy of World EntertainmentBy arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing. Casting Jack Black in the title role of this 2012 dark comedy turns out to be a masterstroke on the part of director and co-screenwriter Richard Linklater because the real-life character of Bernie Tiede is a comically ambiguous figure not only sexually but more to the point, as a jovial child-man personality beloved by his small Texas town of Carthage while at the same time, strangely insistent in his constant presence in their lives. His pointed need for universal acceptance and unconditional love is what makes Bernie unique as a screen creation. It takes Black’s oddly discomfiting screen persona to make the character work as a protagonist of closeted complexity, and in turn, he delivers his most accomplished screen work to date. No stranger to Texas-size guffaws intermingled with wry observations about human nature, the versatile Linklater ("Before Sunrise/Sunset") tells this hard-to-believe, true-crime story with both morbid humor and surprising conviction.Based on a seriocomic 1998 Texas Monthly article by co-screenwriter Skip Hollandsworth, the plot revolves around the unlikely relationship between Bernie, a relentlessly thoughtful assistant funeral director, and Marjorie Nugent, recently widowed and one of the richest women in Carthage. As Bernie becomes indispensable to the fabric of the community with his acts of charitable kindness, his Broadway-style choir solos, and his gentlemanly way of comforting widows in the throes of their grief, the ever-scowling Marjorie is always ready for battle with not only the townsfolk who impede on her life but even her immediate family who can’t stand her. Bernie, however, is able to break through her icy veneer with his cheery persistence, and their relationship evolves into an unhealthy codependence to put it mildly. As Marjorie lavishes Bernie with expensive gifts and luxurious vacations, she grows increasingly manipulative in her need to control his every move to meet her every need. Even Bernie has his limits about what he is willing to do under her iron fist, and needless to say , consequences ensue. For all the dire consequences, Linklater keeps the mood buoyant with the insertion of intertitles to signal what question the movie will address next and with the brief interviews he includes with both actors and true residents of Carthage, all showing their unqualified support of Bernie through his burgeoning troubles.
