If you have given up on the American Dream or, as I have, avoid anything with a twang or a Golden Arch with Coke, all is not lost. There is “Bernie”. It is a movie made by Richard Linklater and is a mixture of non-fiction with fiction. Most of the cast are non-actors but the main characters are Jack Black and Shirley Maclaine.

An undertaker takes up a friendship with a very wealthy but acid nasty widow. The more he does his best to accommodate her the nastier she becomes. A true opposite of natures as he, Jack Black ( Bernie Tiede), the undertaker of the town, is the darling of the Texan community they live in. He can’t do wrong and spends his time genuinely interested in the world around him. He helps everyone because no other person can ever do evil and at funerals he has a kind word for everyone, even if the dearly departed spent life boozing, abusing  and in crime.

The story is factual and about the very real M/s Nugent, the very nasty widow whose grave hardly  anyone ever  visits… We might well all know similar acid-nasty people. Avoid them would be my advice!

Anyway, I felt is was one of those movies that should not be missed. Black comedy at its best and American to boot, amazing!