“What are the odds a funeral home would go out of business?” asks Frank Quinn (Bill Murray), owner of Quinn Funeral Home. “People are dying in bunches – but not here. Now, people in Chicago – they know how to die.”
Quinn is soon to get a visit from a customer who could save his financial hide – Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), an irascible and grouchy old coot who’s been living alone in the woods for years.
Bush has inspired fear among the townspeople, along with whispered accusations of cold-blooded murder, being in league with the Devil and having strange powers – sort of an early Boo Radley, from To Kill a Mockingbird (the role which marked Duvall’s screen debut).
So imagine Quinn’s shock when Bush walks into his establishment with a wad of cash and orders a funeral party that he, Bush, will attend. Bush wants to know what townspeople will say about him. And to make sure they show up, he will offer a drawing for his property.
Based on a true story, Director Aaron Schneider gives us Get Low, a funny and poignant saga of redemption, forgiveness and what may be the strangest funeral party on record.
Bill Murray and Lucas Black
Get Low offers knockout performances from Duvall and Murray, and terrific turns also from Lucas Black as Quinn’s young assistant Buddy and Sissy Spacek as Mattie, who has some history with Bush.
Sissy Spacek
There is, of course, a method to the old man’s madness. Set in the 1938 South (and wonderfully shot in Georgia by David Boyd), the period details are spot-on, the pacing (thanks to Schneider and screenwriters Chris Provenzano and C. Gaby Mitchell) just right, the story fascinating.
Be honest, now: wouldn’t you like to know what people will say about you when you’re gone?
Photo credits: Sony Pictures Classics
