120: BERNIE (2011)

DIRECTOR: RICHARD LINKLATER

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

(BEFORE YOU READ. Scroll down to the Donation Station for an, as of posting, extremely recent Funeral Expenses Fundraiser.)

(TW: Death.)

B is for Bernie. OK, not all of these are going to be people’s names, but bear with me on this one. B also stands for “By God, Jack Black has been in so many movies and I’m getting sick and tired of him.” Currently, Jack Black is a hit-or-miss actor for me. Largely because, nowadays, he doesn’t really act. He puts on the same persona but tweaks it ever so slightly. Sometimes it works, and other times it’s Steve from A Minecraft Movie (2025). That’s why that movie got memed to death, because they took a video game character who doesn’t come pre-packaged with a personality, and just gave them somebody else’s personality; that’s not creating a character, that’s stunt casting. But, to give him credit where credit’s due, Jack Black truly is a very talented person. Not only is he a successful actor, but he’s a successful musician. I think he can be unironically funny, and a genuinely good actor. I grew up with Kung Fu Panda (2008) and I can tell you that he carries out Po’s struggle really well when I look back on those movies. So I think there is good to be found in who Jack Black is, and to prove that point, I give you Bernie.

Bernie is based on the real-life events surrounding Bernie Tiede. A mortician who’s responsible for the murder of the wealthiest woman in Carthage, Texas. But this is not your standard biopic/based-on-a-true-story type of film. They make this into a quirky mockumentary that focuses on the Carthage community and how Bernie affected them. Here’s the thing, Bernie is a nice guy. Truly none of the events that occur in this movie are fully malicious. Some of it can be left in the grey area, which is the best part of this movie, but you take one look at Bernie and he is not evil in the frickin’ slightest.

So, the reason why Bernie knows the wealthiest woman in Carthage is that he helped her find a coffin for the wealthiest man in Carthage; A.K.A., her husband. Bernie is a naturally friendly, and slightly effeminate, conversationalist who loves to help out in any way he can. Where the good chunk of the comedy comes in is when he’s juxtaposed with the most evil woman in the town. Marjorie is Ebenezer Scrooge, she has high status and is a dick to the entire community. She’s a wealth hoarder, she has no friends, and she calls the only black person in town the N-word (granted, she is an old white lady in Texas so that’s kind of a given, but everyone else sans Bernie has that Southern Passive-Aggressivism so it does stand out). But, Bernie still has this mission to become friends with everybody, and that changes something within Marjorie…Oh not for the better, she basically turns Bernie into her servant and does everything for her. But Bernie has been down with that for a while because he’s been using her money, with her permission, to be a pseudo-benefactor for the town. Giving out gifts to people, helping out with Marjorie’s economic problems, and big community endeavors like adding a new wing to a church. But once Marjorie gets even more power hungry and literally makes Bernie her prisoner, he snaps and straight up kills her with a shotgun. Up until the death, I would say that the movie is a little slow-paced, but after the death is what makes this movie really interesting.

Because there are these confessionals put throughout the movie, due to it being a mockumentary, we get the thoughts and opinions of the locals, and that fact makes this movie really cool when it comes to the moral debate of Bernie killing Marjorie. Again, everyone hates Marjorie so when she’s dead this leads into a very interesting conversation about death itself and whether or not she deserved it. That ties in directly to my theory on the theme of the movie; Death doesn’t exonerate you and what you do when you’re alive matters so much more. This has become a topic all too relevant now with the recent deaths of people like Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Brian Thompson, and most importantly Charlie Kirk. From the moment we start to understand the concept of death, we are told to respect it. But that perspective has been changing a lot because the people previously mentioned spouted harmful bullshit, created wars, and jacked up the prices of life-saving medicine and insurance. It’s the actions that these evil-ass people did when they were alive that got them this response after each of their deaths. Obviously, Marjorie is not on that level but her death is what gets people to be all “give Bernie a light sentence” and “oh well, she deserved it.” Speaking of Bernie, he actually benefits from this in a way that he doesn’t even think about. Bernie views this action with so much guilt and says that he did this for himself; but the town views this as another net positive that he provided for the community.

This is a delightful indie black comedy that has Jared Hess vibes to it honestly, it makes sense considering that, before Bernie, he was in Nacho Libre (2006). I’ve got nothing else to say other than, if you can rent this or find it somewhere, I think you’ll enjoy this film.

8.8/10

-Charlie :)

DONATION STATION:

(TW: Extremely Recent Death.)

This is a very unfortunate Donation Station to share. Renee Nicole Good was a mother to a six-year-old child in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Unfortunately, as she was legally observing an ICE Raid, she was murdered in broad daylight. Reportedly, rapid response physicians were trying to help tend to Ms. Good’s wounds but ICE Gestapo agents outright refused to give Nicole any sort of recovery. She died because of that. I will be linking to a GoFundMe that just went up that will cover Ms. Good’s Funeral Expenses.

Renee Nicole Good Memorial Fund:

[embed]Donate to Support for Renee Good's wife and son, organized by Mattie Weiss Please support the wife and son of Renee Good as they grapple with the devastating ... Mattie Weiss needs your support…www.gofundme.com