"Bernie" (2011): Jack Black Smolders with Small Town Subversiveness

I grew up in Texas.  And while it was in the suburbs of Houston, I have a deep and abiding understanding and respect for all things Small Town, Texas.  "Bernie" exquisitely captures both the sensibility and the simplicity of the scores of hamlets which dot the vast landscape of "The Lone Star State". 

Jack Black is remarkable as the title character.  He neither mugs nor overdoes, as he does in so many of the caricature roles upon which he has built his career.  He actually acts.  And, as they may say in Texas, "Ya done durn good, pardner!".

One would expect that Black would play this real life guy, who confessed to and was convicted of murdering a mean but filthy rich "meal ticket" old lady companion (played to the insufferable hilt by the legendary Shirley MacLaine) with some of the most broad strokes imaginable.  The good news is that he successfully resists the urge.  This out of the ordinary performance is at once finely nuanced, sympathetic, enigmatic and funny.  It makes you wish that Black, much like Will Farrell in "Everything Must Go", would challenge himself more often to stretch beyond the oblivious yet fully self-aware boneheaded doofs he has foisted upon audiences over and over and over again.  This sparkling cinematic departure proves in resounding fashion that he certainly can.  

While Black is the axis around which everything else in "Bernie" revolves, hearty recognition simply must go to the actual townspeople of Carthage, Texas.  Native Texan and Director Richard Linklater intersperses these regular folk delivering commentary (at times scripted, yet at other times it would certainly appear not) on Bernie and Marjorie (MacLaine) throughout what is clearly a "labor of love" project for him.  These doses of "tell it like it is Texas plain talk" are both hilarious and touching. 

Y'all best check this one out.

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