DIRECTOR Richard Linklater co-wrote this film with magazine journalist Skip Hollingworth, who wrote an article about a local assistant funeral director who’s now in jail for murdering the wealthiest woman in Carthage, a small Texas town.

No murder mystery, “Bernie” is a portrait of a township where mortician Bernie Tiede, charitable, compassionate, participating in all community activities, without an evil cell in his body, befriended wealthy widow and town grouch Marjorie. In time, she had him running her house, her finances, her pedicures and her wardrobe. They travelled together, they attended cultural events. Whether the relationship was sexual is not known. Bernie is probably asexual and Marjorie seems not to have had a joyous cell in her body.

Linklater tells the story of Bernie and Marjorie in quasi-documentary style, with commentary from real townsfolk who had watched their relationship develop.

After Marjorie’s body was found and Bernie confessed, the Carthage townsfolk made it clear that whatever the evidence, a local jury would acquit Bernie. This obliged district attorney Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey) to move the trial to another town.

In a commendable performance, portraying a man of whom it might rightly have been said that he went about doing good, Jack Black plays Bernie less for laughs than in a credible character study displaying a range of performance skills. As Marjorie, Shirley MacLaine gives great hissy fit alongside moments of exploiting Bernie’s generous spirit and domestic versatility.

The film’s charm invites affectionate smiles. Well-supplied with clever dialogue generating chuckles rather than roars of laughter, the screenplay canvasses a variety of comic styles. The ad libs from townsfolk often convey the humour of reality delivered with a palpable sense of unscripted authenticity.

At Greater Union