Undertaking Betty (2002)

Originally Reviewed

Thursday March 16, 2006

Undertaking Betty is an interesting take on a romantic comedy. Alfred Molina plays Boris Plotz, the director of a small funeral home in the small town of Welsh. Ever since he was a child he regrets the day that he never asked Betty, the one he has always loved, to dance with him. Thirty years later Betty is married to the town's Mayor, who cares nothing of her and is having an affair with his secretary (Naomi Watts). When the Mayor's mother dies, Betty goes to Boris to direct the funeral. The meeting between Boris and Betty re-kindles a once burning flame that they both secretly held for one another.

Boris asks Betty to run away with him but Betty does not want to divorce her husband since it will leave him rather poor, (she doesn't know he's cheating on her). Boris comes up with the idea of making everyone in the town think Betty is dead and even have a funeral, then her husband will get all her money, she won't have to worry about him, then she and Boris can run off to some exotic location.

Things start to get messy when Frank Featherbed (Christopher Walken), another funeral director, competes against Plotz for the right to perform the funeral. Featherbed is attempting to revolutionize the way funerals are done, by making the living fantasies come true, as is seen when he throws a Star Trek themed funeral. Things start to get even more interesting when Betty finds out of her husband's affair, now she isn't so much worried about his well being, but what is she going to do about him since she is dead!

Undertaking Betty is a very entertaining and humorous story; the whole plot to make it seem that Betty is dead makes for some very funny situations. The acting was all done very well and the characters were very comical. Christopher Walken's character was probably my favorite and the scene where they have a Star Trek funeral was hilarious. I was a little disappointed with Naomi Watts’s role, she is only in the film for about 10 minutes and basically she plays a tramp, not her best performance. But aside from that Undertaking Betty is a unique spin on a romantic comedy and is definitely something you don't see very often. Never released in the states, this film is worth a rent. It's very well done and achieves plenty of laughs in a short amount of time. 

8/10