The Pallbearer

"The Pallbearer", a schizophrenic cross-genre muddling of comedy, drama, and romance with idiosyncratic characters and a thin, marginally interesting story. Schwimmer is at the center of this slow moving, somewhat quirky flick about a young man who lives with his mother (Bosco anyone?) and courts a demure unassured girl (Paltrow) while having an affair with an older woman (Hershey). Most will find it difficult to get their head into this off-kilter story and its subtle tongue-in-cheek humor though it remains loyal to its purpose throughout...whatever that may be.

Maybe it was the great, eclectic soundtrack with the likes of Django Reinhardt, Herbie Hancock, Perry Como, Curtis Mayfield, Neil Young and Richie Havens, or maybe it was the dark and subtle bits of humor that pleasantly surprised me throughout the movie, but I really enjoyed this one.

We meet Tom, a forlorn twenty-something man-child still living at home and struggling to take control of his life, played by David Schwimmer of "Friends" fame. Tom gets a call from a woman who mistakenly believes he knew her recently deceased son. He goes along with it, presumably to save her the added grief of knowing her son had no close friends. Of course, Tom's accommodating nature backfires and he's asked to give the eulogy for a man he never knew. This sets up a scene with the kind of dark humor seen throughout the movie that audiences are either delighted with or immediately turned off by.

At the funeral, Tom meets Julie, his unrequited high school crush, played with genuine emotion and winsome grace by Gwyneth Paltrow. Thus begins two relationships that play out over the duration of the film --one with Grace, the bereft mother of the friend Tom never had, played by Barbara Hershey, and the other with Julie.

Yes, this movie owes much, in terms of plot and characters, to "The Graduate," with Hershey playing the counterpart to Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson. But it turns out to be much more than just an update of the '60s classic. The audience really gets to know the inner turmoil both Tom and Julie are going through -- Tom, both for the guilt of becoming unwittingly involved with Grace, and for also being involved with Julie at the same time, and Julie, for being torn between striking out on her own to escape her overbearing parents and getting into a deep relationship with Tom.

There are a couple of sideplots going on with Tom's friends -- Michael Rapaport's character getting married to a woman his friends don't like, and Michael Vardan's married character, making a move on Julie, which obviously infuriates Tom. And Carol Kane as Tom's mom, is precious. In one scene, he is livid after she bursts into his room unannounced. After she receives a brief scolding for not knocking, she replies "I only wanted to see if you wanted some ice cream," to which he replies "A little."

Schwimmer nails the role, with his underplayed, tacit sadness about his so-far-failed attempt at making a responsible life for himself. And Paltrow, well, can she ever miss? Whether for the dark humor, spot-on acting, or superb soundtrack, this one is definitely worth a viewing.

Pallbearer is a story about a guy who has not gained anything in his life and his future does not look promising either. Well, he is healthy and sane but incredibly unfortunate because he has probably been a too kind person: the life he was supposed to be living has slipped through his fingers. Turning now into latter part of his twenties he realizes that he's still a little boy and he should start doing something.

He will have a hopeless crush on a girl, and likewise a widow who has lost his son too will have a hopeless crush on him and that leads into a romance that is both tragic and comical. David Schwimmer makes a good performance as the guy who has to survive from many kinds of embarrassing situations, and Paltrow as the woman will do the standard Paltrow set. Nothing too surprising in the plot but the film is relatively good watching because of some well worked little scenes that faintly resemble Mr. Bean episodes.

I wasn't sure what to expect about this movie. I remembered that it was a "bomb" when it appeared in theatres so I kept passing it by at the video store. It's often out but I'm glad that I took the time to watch it. I thought the characters were appealing & the situations they found themselves in rang true. A 25 year old floundering around, messing up with his friends was fitting. David Schwimmer isn't my favorite but the movie played to his strengths, and you can see that Gwyneth is due to break out as a star plus the rest of the cast is solid. I am especially glad that I didn't read the comments until I saw the movie. I see the negative points but if you approach the movie as a quirky romantic comedy with a dark twist you will be entertained & laugh & smile some too.

I would suspect that most reviewers on this page are disappointed for not being handed the cookie cutter romantic comedy that the poster art for this film suggests. Not getting the conventional romantic comedy was what I liked most about this well written and darkly hilarious film. In THE PALLBEARER, we are shown the effect that Gwyneth Paltrow's character has on David Shwimmer's character. In the end, Tom's the guy we're meant to focus on, not Julie, or even the relationship between the two. Even if the general consensus is that this film is sub-par, I'll have to stick to my conclusion that THE PALLBEARER was an exceptionally made black comedy.