After ten years a group of college friends meet again because one of them died. Since college they had never seen each other again because each one followed his own roam. In spite of being a funeral this meeting appears as an opportunity to them to be together again and remember the old times. In addition it's like a celebration; it's like a memorial to JOÃO (the friend who died). So, in the night before the funeral, this group of friends joined together and talked about their old stories, some of them funny, some of them sad.
That's the main theme of FUNERAL À CHUVA, a comedy drama produced and directed by Telmo Martins, a young Portuguese director. It's his first long production. Taking in consideration that FUNERAL À CHUVA is clearly a low budget film, done with a group of new generation actors and also the debut of this director in long productions we cannot say it is totally bad, because the main idea in spite of not being original (not even close) is quite interesting and there're a few good moments in humor.
But, if we didn't take all those features in consideration the opinion about this movie would be very different
I mean the acting is not that good (to not say awful in the beginning!), especially by the most unknown actors; the screenplay has a few good moments (creating the good humor scenes I did refer) but sometimes it's completely pathetic/silly, creating "suppose to be funny" moments that clearly fail and turn the scenes a bit ridiculous and unfunny; the main thematic is interesting as said but the film ends being a bit superficial and not as deep as it could be. I know it's a comedy drama that pretends be more funny than dramatic but it ends being just comical and not dramatic at all, because the supposed drama scenes are funny themselves!
As bad features: the acting (that is terrible at parts, especially in the beginning); screenplay (especially some lines); some superficiality.
As good features: it's a debut (it's from a new generation of actors and directors that are so required in the Portuguese cinema scene); the main thematic (about the celebration of friendship and about this idea that death is not the end
); some funny moments (like those when they are playing that truth or consequence game called "Eu nunca nunca"
); the soundtrack, at parts (I especially enjoyed the songs by Gogol Bordello!).
I don't think it's a great movie, but I will take in consideration the features I did refer above and will score it 5/10.
