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Death At A Funeral
Neil LaBute's take on Dean Craig's screenplay
Wed, 14 Jul 2010
Any screenwriter will be delighted that their work’s getting filmed, but Dean Craig found himself in an almost surreal situation when his comedy Death at a Funeral was remade in Hollywood only a couple of years after the original British version hit the screens. Since the essential structure of the story remained unchanged in the meantime, this is clearly a script with pointers to offer anyone approaching their own comedy writing. Spoilers ahead as our reviewer Trevor Johnston dons black tie to investigate how you turn mourning into laughter.
Whether it’s the modestly-proportioned homegrown incarnation directed by Frank Oz with Matthew Macfadyen and Rupert Graves, or the rather more lavish and slightly broader US take on it from Neil LaBute with Chris Rock and Martin Lawrence, one thing’s for certain – the notion of utter chaos befalling a funeral ceremony is something which transcends cultural difference and tickles the funny bone on both sides of the Atlantic. 
Writer Dean Craig understood from the outset that putting characters in a social situation requiring best behaviour, then introducing sundry variables which force them to do things they would never countenance under normal circumstances provides a solid basis for generating laughter. When all goes decidedly pear-shaped and the participants are still desperate to maintain their equilibrium, that’s when we chuckle, amused that we’re not having to deal with the same no-win scenario ourselves. Obvious though it might sound, good situation comedy requires an astute choice of situation to begin with.
That said, the situation is only the setting for the tribulations the characters are about to go through, so it’s important early on to set up the character outlines which are not only going to feed the comedy but will generate the theme of the story. Okay, so some comedies, particularly if skewed towards the farce or pastiche end of the spectrum, don’t seem to be ‘about’ anything much except getting us to chortle. One of the advantages in building a comedy around situations which involve fundamental life experiences and emotions however, is that the potential is there to give the material a substantive thematic foundation underpinning the humour. Laughter which involves some element of emotional recognition is a higher quality of laughter, after all.
Two deaths, two funerals, two character clusters
Of course, it should be admitted that Death at a Funeral in its various guises may not quite make it into the canon of comedy masterpieces, but it is undeniably effective with audiences. Moreover, it does have something to say about human foibles beyond putting its cast through the ringer, so it’s worth taking an extended look at. One thing note of about the two different versions is that although they’re basically the same on a scene-by-scene basis, the character names have undergone a change in the process. For the sake of clarity, we’ll stick to the original British characters here, but also indicate the casting in the more recent Hollywood version.
Martin Lawrence and Chris RockThe crux of the story is that the events at the funeral will prove pivotal for bereaved brothers Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen/Chris Rock) and Robert (Rupert Graves/Martin Lawrence) and indeed for their cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan/Zoe Saldana). Daniel is Mr Uptight, worried about money and miserable because he’s been struggling to write a novel while his sibling is a bestselling author of slightly trashy potboilers. The fact that he’s been caring for their late father while the other brother has been living the high-life also decidedly rankles. Thus, the story is set in motion so Daniel can face the challenge of coming to terms with the anger and resentment he feels because everything gets to him, and Robert’s character journey, by contrast, looks to be about realising that his egotism is isolating him from the genuine human connections which are the stuff of life. The hurdle Martha faces, in turn, is getting her new boyfriend Simon (Alan Tudyk/James Marsden) to win over her stern father, who’s invited her ex Justin (Ewen Bremner/Luke Wilson) to the funeral because he approves of him rather more than her current beau. Clearly, her story is going to be about declaring her own independence and validating her own choices rather than her suffocating dad’s.
It’s interesting to note that there are two discrete character clusters here, with Martha’s story evidently subordinate to the dilemmas facing the two brothers. This is significant because the nature of setting up comic situations and gags means that you need to leave a scene once it’s delivered its laughter, and thus it is imperative to have something to cut away to which is going to sustain the story’s momentum.
Of course, if you just had two character clusters the process of back-and-forth would get a bit predictable, so one of the advantages of a comedy script built around a social gathering is that there are obviously going to be wider options and the possibility to play with different comic types – like loose-cannon, cantankerous elderly Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan/Danny Glover) who doesn’t care who he upsets, for instance, or the schmuck-ish family friend Howard (Andy Nyman/Tracy Morgan), one of those guys to whom stuff always seems to happen. Surprise too, is of the essence, since humour often revolves around characters being confronted with developments which they could not have anticipated, and again Craig Dean’s script works in two such characters – Martha’s brother Troy (Kris Marshall/Columbus Short), a chemistry student with an illicit sideline in supplying hallucinogenics, plus small dark stranger Peter (Peter Dinklage, the only cast member in both versions), who’s about to reveal that the deceased had a secret love life unsuspected by his family!
Chaos reigns
Peter Dinklage and Matthew MacfadyenWhat’s next? Well, it’s obviously a case of throwing the wild-card individuals at the main character clusters and enjoying the ensuing carnage. Hitting the characters where it’s going to hurt is the name of the game, which is why it simply has to be Simon, the boyfriend whom Martha really wants to impress her disapproving dad, is, of course, first to wolf down the ‘Valium’ which turns out to be a variant of acid, thus prompting unpredictable hallucinogenic side-effects. Significant here is understanding the role of cause-and-effect in setting up a gag, so after Simon starts tripping out we’re told the drugs will last for eight hours, but have no idea what sort of state he’ll be in by the end of that time, or indeed what form his hallucinations will take along the way. Oh, and that’s all before the bottle of pills go missing, so that anyone else might find them and have a pop at any minute, bringing more chaos to what’s supposed to be a sedate and sober occasion of remembrance. So, audience knowledge of cause and effect are essential in whipping up anticipation – and if the viewer thinks something funny’s about to happen, the story already has them in its grasp.
The point about comedy is that the writer always has to have another gag or amusing situation waiting in the wings to follow-up the ones we’re watching. It’s not just enough to have one person taking the misleadingly labelled Valium, you have to top that gag. In this instance, confronting the brothers with photographic evidence of their seemingly happily married late father in flagrante with a gay dwarf pretty much fits the bill. In looking for his share of the inheritance, or at least a healthy pay-off, Peter, the surprise guest, hits uptight Daniel in the wallet, which is a source of friction for him and spendthrift sibling Robert – thus putting pressure on the key character dilemmas (Daniel buckling under stress, Robert seemingly blasé) which were introduced at the start of the story. Ensuring that the comedy set-pieces have a thematic function gives the story substance and coherence, which is what you’re looking for, tying characters and events together so the film’s not just a succession of gags laid end-to-end.
Not just a string of gags
What’s especially successful here in terms of keeping the action lively is the way both the wild-card elements interact with the two key character clusters already described. Thus, the hallucinating Simon freaks out as Daniel is in the process of delivering his eulogy (a brilliantly funny cavalcade of the mundane in the original British version), and the former’s screaming conviction that the coffin’s moving brings events to an uproarious halt. Which is, evidently, what the writer needs to happen so he can keep working away at the dilemmas for the two discrete character clusters: in the hiatus, Peter seizes his moment to press his blackmail claims, which eventually end up with him bound and gagged in a side room as the siblings careen into panic mode; while the same intermission gives the frazzled Simon time to lock himself in the upstairs loo, thus allowing Martha’s irrepressible ex Justin to put himself forward again, in so doing highlighting her father’s overbearing influence on her choice of partner.
As the madness intensifies, Simon ventures naked out on to the roof, which proves a blessing, since by this time the bound and gagged Peter, after being fed a handful of ‘Valium’ – yes, those pesky tablets keep popping up in exactly the wrong place at the wrong time! – in his struggle to escape, has brained himself on a table and now appears to be dead. Well, the movie’s called Death at a Funeral so we should have expected something like this – presumably ‘Dead Gay Dwarf at a Funeral’ would have been too much of a give-away. And borderline offensive into the bargain (more on this later).
Let’s get scatological
Oh and just as the to-and-fro between the twin-track crises threatens to fall into a routine, the writer throws us by delivering a gross-out highlight when we’re least expecting it. 
Set-piece US styleWe’ve had drugs, naked people, small people, and death, so now it’s time for…Uncle Alfie’s bowels exploding while schmuck-o Howard still has one hand caught between the old boy’s botty and the toilet seat. Eeewww number one as the excreta flies! Eeewww number two (if you pardon the expression) as Howard tries to wash his hands and splashes the bodily matter all over himself! Eeewww number three as he appears to have some flecks still left on his face! No, it’s not the last word in elegant sophistication, but having softened the audience up with so much previous carnage this turns out to be the most raucous moment of the entire movie. The script would work perfectly well without it, but in terms of commercial calculation, this sort of talking-point sequence is extremely useful in getting a script made and a film marketed.
What goes up must come down
Set-piece UK styleAll hell having pretty much broken loose, the danger is now that the writer’s played all his best cards. One thing that can be learned from Death at a Funeral is that having taken the proceedings to the brink of madness, Dean Craig’s script is also well capable of restoring normality and revealing its key theme. It all goes back to the character themes established at the start: the prospect of a jail term given the dead little guy on their hands forces Daniel and Robert into joint action (Daniel thus learning spontaneity, Robert becoming more of a team player) as they use the distraction of the naked Simon on the roof to deposit Peter’s body into the same coffin as their father. By the same token, Martha has to act to restore the equilibrium in her story thread, luring Simon back in from the roof with the revelation that she’s pregnant, and also facing off her dad and her ex with her announcement that she’s marrying Simon. In both plot strands then, comic action leads to thematic resolution, though in the case of Daniel, his big moment is yet to come…
After a very much alive Peter pops up out of the coffin and the naughty photos are spread all over the room, Daniel comes up with an off-the-cuff eulogy celebrating his late father’s open attitudes – thus defusing any misgivings over the film’s potentially size-ist and/or homophobic humour – and indeed the dead man’s ability to make the best of whatever life threw at him. Evidence then, that Daniel’s learned to go with the flow himself and gained some self-confidence through this commanding display, which also prompts an offer from eclipsed Robert that he’ll look after their still-shocked mother for a while (so taking care of the main remaining loose end).
As is so often the case in comedy, an upbeat ending rewards the characters for their forbearance in the face of the previous mayhem, while also reminding us that sometimes we need to be taken out of our comfort zones to learn about ourselves and move on in life. The solid construction of Death at a Funeral may seem formulaic to some but it hits its generic marks and satisfies audience expectations, hence the fact that Hollywood felt no need to tamper with it unduly when bringing their glossy, recast version to the screen. Can’t quite imagine how Bollywood might crack it however…
Hints and Tips
• Comedy is about embarrassment. People get embarrassed by inappropriate behaviour, so situations where codes of conduct appear to be circumscribed can be useful in developing comedy scripts. Think about how to manoeuvre your characters into positions where they’re forced into going beyond everyday strictures because the alternative would somehow be even worse. Go to prison on a murder charge or slip a dead dwarf into a coffin? Go on, admit it, you’d be tempted….
• Comedy’s about laughter, to state the bleedin’ obvious, but that laughter can be more effective and richer when it stems from recognisable everyday character issues we can all relate to. It’s all about hitting the characters where it hurts – so the guy with the short temper gets provoked and provoked, the worrier has more and more stress ladled on top of him, the egotist is forced to lose his cool and play more of a team game…
• Making sure the audience understands cause and effect is crucial for setting in motion a chain of events which will gather comedic momentum. Grasping the process will enable the viewer to anticipate the ensuing carnage, allowing the writer to give the audience satisfaction for guessing right or to deliver a surprise by wrong-footing them.
• Comic momentum is about variety and control. Once a gag or scene has delivered its comic payload there has to be somewhere else to go which will sustain the interest and not seem like a letdown. However, the writer has to know how far they can push the madness because there has to be a way back down to earth and towards a restored equilibrium which will send the audience out with a satisfying and compassionate resolution.
©Trevor Johnston/The Script Factory 2010
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