Bernie (2012)

Richard Linklater’s Bernie faces a considerable challenge. It is a true crime story that is completely devoid of suspense, loose ends, or any real ambiguity as to what happens. It’s all quite clear, and the culprit confessed to his guilt early on. This isn’t Zodiac, where paranoia and mystery hang over the characters as they attempt to find an answer that may not exist. In this case the question is answered before the film even begins. So what makes this story worthy of the cinematic treatment? Because the fascination lies not with the crime, but the people involved and the environment in which it was committed. On paper, the protagonists and antagonists of this story may be quite clear. You ask any of the residents of Carthage, Texas, and they’ll have a very different opinion.

The criminal in this story is Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a funeral home worker who quickly becomes the most popular man in Carthage. He is religious, charitable, and a genius when it comes to dealing with the bereaved. He takes a special liking to Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine), a wealthy widower who is despised among the townspeople for her bullying ways. Bernie and Marjorie becomes friends—a relationship mysterious to the rest of Carthage—and ultimately he is recruited to become her assistant. (Or, more aptly, her servant.) The friendship doesn’t stay friendly for long, and Marjorie’s overbearing nastiness eventually becomes too much for Bernie. He snaps, and the resulting action leads to a trial involving the District Attorney Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey).

Despite Bernie admitting to his actions, the trial proves to be an incredibly chaotic ordeal. The citizens of Carthage constantly tell Danny to go easy on the boy; that he couldn’t possibly have done it. But even if he did, the general sentiment of Carthage could be summed up in one quotation: “there are people in this town who would have shot her (Marjorie) for five dollars.” This is not a case of a madman being put on trial for the murder of a poor old lady; this is the town saint getting vilified because of the town monster. Bernie was the man who funded churches, playgrounds, and was generous with his time and money. Nobody hated Bernie, and Bernie hated nobody. With the exception of that one unfortunate moment when he lost all control.

Linklater’s Bernie captures all this in an unconventional yet rather genius fashion. Often the film is more mockumentary than narrative feature, as long stretches of the film consist of interviews with various Carthage figures. These are actors and not the real people—we get a couple glimpses of the real Bernie and Marjorie during the credits—but these interview scenes are necessary for Linklater to wholly build up the universe of this small Texas town. The scenes of Black and MacLaine are great in and of themselves, but their actions would not have any meaning were it not for these glimpses into Carthage’s collective psychology. Bernie is not fascinating just because of the story, though that helps. It is fascinating because of all the craziness that surrounds this event, and how head-on it tackles the issue of one caring man’s ability to snap and become another person entirely for just one crucial minute.

Potentially more problematic is Linklater’s decision to play this all as a dark comedy. Since this is an actual event that actually happened to actual people, some may perceive his handling of the material as strange. However, the inherent wackiness of the whole affair calls for it. Speaking from an objective standpoint, just about everything that happens in Bernie is funny. That it happened in real life is what makes it slightly stranger. We often aren’t laughing at the tragedy of the situation as we are the circumstances and the environment. Despite Carthage’s feelings for Bernie—and ours, while we’re at it—the truth is that he committed a heinous crime and covered it up for a very long time. Yet Danny Buck’s job proves to be quite difficult when he discovers that Carthage’s love for Tiede could keep him from a conviction. His slightly unorthodox solution? Move the trial 50 miles away.

Bernie is filled with inspired, often hilarious little touches. Even trifling scenes, like an early interview in which a Carthage resident lays out the five different “sections” of Texas, provide a great deal of background for the people we’re seeing onscreen. While this is an entirely dramatized take on the Bernie Tiede saga, Linklater approaches it almost as if he were making a documentary. (Much of the script comes from notes by journalist Skip Hollandsworth, who wrote an article on this whole situation for Texas Monthly.) He’s genuinely trying to communicate the lifestyle of people in Carthage, and how Bernie’s actions so shook the people of this town. He isn’t mocking anybody here. Sure, he may seem obviously amused by the whole thing, but he’s genuinely fascinated as well.

When the film shifts its gears to full-on narrative mode, the performances by Black, MacLaine and McConaughey are so stellar that these transitions are just about seamless. (McConaughey’s first appearance comes in the midst of several “talking head” interviews, and it took me a second to realize that film star Matthew McConaughey had suddenly shown up.) At the very least, Black’s performance as the eponymous criminal is his best work in years, and possibly ever. Even his fantastic work in Linklater’s own School of Rock, while great, was very much up his usual alley. Bernie feels like much more of a departure, and it’s a joy to watch him in the midst of such an incredibly unusual tale.

Grade: A-