Saturday, March 18, 2006

Undertaking Betty

Title: Undertaking Betty -aka- Plots With A View (2002)
Dir: Nick Hurran
Tagline: A comedy where love finds new life and death is something to laugh about.
Rating: *** out of 5 stars



I'm not gonna lie: romantic comedies aren't really my thing. But I could not pass up a movie about Alfred Molina and Christopher Walken as competing undertakers.

The movie is about an funeral owner named Boris (Molina) who has always been in love with Betty (Brenda Blethyn) but the snag is, she married some asshole. Well turns out Betty also has feelings for Boris, and they decide to fake her death so that she can escape her husband and run off with Boris. And thus the wacky hijinks ensue.

The film isn't anything special, and I've already forgotten most of it. In fact, I wasn't really feeling the love story between Boris and Betty - it was pretty rushed so they could spend most of the movie on faking her death. But it's not a bad movie and can be pretty cute.

Christopher Walken, who is fun to watch as always, plays the eccentric (duh) competing undertaking, Frank Featherbed, who offers themed funerals for his clients. Lee Evans plays his apprentice, and he's kind of annoying but I do like that Lee Evans. I can never remember if he's actually British or just pretending.

I'm sure fans of romantic comedies - especially British ones - would enjoy this. It's just not my personal cup of tea. I never could get into 'Waking Ned Devine' and movies like that. I liked the morbid side of Ned and Betty, but they are still too cutesy for my taste.

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