Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Shilo May 4, 2016I really wanted to like this picture since it's clearly inspired by the 1967 film "The Graduate." I like David Schwimmer but I didn't like "The Pallbearer." It's because the film is a heartache of characters that seem to be thrown into the film for no reason and it's too stupid to watch as the plot unfolds, we are left with nothing. It starts off promising but falls off the wheels very fast.It's about a 25-year-old bachelor, Tom Thomson (David Schwimmer), who lives at home with his mom, Ruth Abernathy (Carol Kane) and sleeps in a bunk bed. One day, he receives a phone call from, Ruth Abernathy (Barbara Hersey) who is the mother of a kid that Tom went to school with. The kid, Bill has committed suicide so she wants Tom to be a Pallbearer and give a eulogy at the funeral. Tom easily screws up the eulogy and struggles to remember who Bill was in high school. Tom's high school crush, Julie DeMarco (Gwyneth Paltrow) re-enters his life and sends Tom worlds on a crash course for destruction when Ruth becomes attached to Tom and he must figure out who Bill is and keep Ruth off his back while chasing after Julie.There were so many questions I had to ask myself during this picture and one of them was "Why does this film exist and what does it try to accomplish?" In answer, not a whole lot. There are multiple characters in this picture that don't work and they cause the plot to unfold in stupid ways. Julie re-enters Tom's life because the screenplay just told her to show up. Barbara Hersey plays a vixen who wants to sleep with Tom for some reason even though her son just killed himself. Carol Kane is wasted as Tom's mother and Michael Rapaport is wasted as, what I think is, Tom's friend. There's another friend in there as well. They act as though they are brothers but we never learn this.Anyway, it opens promising with the character of Tom being an insecure and sluggish kind of person who looks like he has no clue what he is doing in life or with himself. He's never dated a woman, his only companion is her mother and he doesn't seem to know what to do in any situation. When he receives the call for the pallbearer task, he doesn't remember who Bill is. We don't learn who Bill was or why he died. We only learn Tom's name was in a will, supposedly. From here we start to question where this picture is going to go. Tom shows up at the funeral and makes an idiot out of himself because he can't tell Ruth that he doesn't remember her son. Soon after, the plot goes downhill and the film falls right off the tracks.Ruth becomes infatuated with Tom and we never understand why. He ends up sleeping with her while attempting to fetch Julie in his own stupid way and the film because a love triangle of sorts that really spins out of control. Of course, Julie finds out and Tom is in hot water. This concept is stretched over the course of an hour and never really develops. We never learn what Ruth's agenda is or who she is. Maybe she ruins people's lives for fun or maybe she is a lonely woman? We don't know and that's the biggest problem this picture faces with any of the characters. It gets tiring very fast.Julie's character is wasted as well. We learn nothing about her and she seems to act like she never went to high school with Tom either until she confesses "I remember you." Why does she tell him this 45 minutes into the picture? She is not developed either and the ending proves that she was a waste all along as well. I'm sure what the message they were trying to send out here but the film is all over the place and never stop to explain anything. She's a romantic prop that shows up in a few scenes and then disappears like she was never there in the first place. Her character is the one that was the hardest to figure out and by the second act, I just didn't care anymore.I was quite disappointed when he ending came and I was saying to myself "Maybe they will explain this mess at the end?" and No, no, they didn't. The film attempts to end on a positive note which it does work. It's semi-conclusive but it doesn't explain the rest of the story and why everything happened and leaves us feeling very tired and exhausted from trying to figure this mess out. Matt Reeves and Jason Katims wrote this and that would explain at least one thing. Jason is a TV writer and I think this picture would have worked better if it were made as a TV series to explore everything it set out to tell. However, as a movie, its fails.

bk34 I know it has been said already, but a 4.8 rating is criminally low for this movie. I'm guessing, based on my own pre-viewing experience, that the low rating is due to viewer expectations. After reading the cover of the VHS copy I watched, I expected Pallbearers to be a lighthearted, screwball comedy. Although there were comic moments, the movie also explored deeper terrain, and was all the better for it. I thought Pallbearers presented a seamless blend of humor and some poignant stuff about the angsty, turbulent ethos of the early 20's. David Schimmer was neurotic, charming, endearing, and overall fantastic in the lead role (shades of Woody Allen) and the supporting actors were all convincing in theirs. I also thought that the soundtrack fit the movie perfectly, providing the perfect backdrop for tones that were simultaneously wistful, bittersweet, romantic, and humorous. Maybe the movie appealed to me especially because I really connected with some of the experiences and emotions explored; nevertheless, I give it a solid 8 out of 10.

Matthew Stechel No One really needs another review of this but i'll try.The Pallbearer sustains a beautifully melancholic tone throughout its running time. Those of you who've sat through countless indie films will realize how incredibly hard this is to do in practice. You push this tone too much, you run the risk of looking overly self indulgent or pompous...The Pallbearer doesn't look either of these---it manages to effectively convey the main character's sad existence, the lack of dreams he has for himself, as well as the realization that he's going to need some if he ever wants to get out of his mom's house in Brooklyn.That it manages to set this up while pursuing an unrequited love plot line----schwimmer meets up with his long term high school crush at a social function and resumes pining for her (and yes this was Gwenyth Paltrow's first major role at the time i believe)--while slowly realizing that he could actually date her if he wanted to--which he then attempts to and slowly but surely fumbles away. Its his fumbling that actually makes this plot line work--because his character has such lack of confidence in his abilities to do anything successfully you can almost see how he's just completely sabotaging this relationship up almost as a default setting.The plot borrows a strong ingredient from The Graduate--In short order Schwimmer's character ends up bedding a much older woman---and a much more dominant one as well--but i think his relationship with her comes from a different place then Dustin Hoffman's reasons for bedding Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate. Schwimmer's character feels like a loser, so he acts like a loser, so he continues to live like a loser--perpetuating the cycle--its not exactly an act of rebellion or an act of concern about his future the way it was for Hoffman---but still its a key plot point of The Graduate and the two films similarities in plot and tone are hard to overlook---and yet The Pallbearer got to me in a way that The Graduate never did. Maybe its because The Pallbearer is more contemporary (although not too contemporary--if it was done today--schwimmer's character would spend all of his time on message boards on the internet for sure.) but i definitely felt this film strike a nerve deep within me far more painfully then The Graduate did.This film also was the first one produced by none other then JJ Abrams--2 years before Felicity made its debut on TV--and a full 8 years before LOST premiered. It was also written by frequent TV writer Jason Katims (he of Friday Night Lights, Boston Public, Roswell, and various other rather uncommonly well written television shows concerning modern wayward youth) and directed by Matt Reeves who went on to direct Cloverfield and Let Me In (which is odd because the only horror this film has is completely in the abstract societal sense.) Either way--there was a lot of major talent involved behind the making of this film that was just starting out here for the first time--and i truly believe it to be a far more noteworthy film not only because of that but also because this movie was completely ahead of its time in showing you the whole twenty somethings who don't know what to do with their life stage of life---and also a truly underrated film on its own merits worthy of study and a true successor to The Graduate (and the fact that it'll prob never be seen as such largely sucks.)

mt0804 The DVD cover to this film describes it as "wildly entertaining." I find this characterization "wildly" inappropriate. Although it does have its comedic moments at the beginning (the funeral scenes are reminiscent of "The Big Chill" and the "Chuckles the Clown" episode of "Mary Tyler Moore, the film smoothly evolves into a poignant story of Tom Thompson's(Schwimmer)search for the meaning of his life. He is hindered in part by his inability to get past an unrequited love in high school (played by Paltrow). Schwimmers's body language is so in tune to the emptiness of his character. His journey reminds me, once again of another film - Benjamin Braddock in "The Graduate. Tom has three friends who give the appearance of having figured things out, but demonstrate their own frailties before the film is done. Barbara Hershey, in the role of the mother of the deceased, initially earns no sympathy, but by end of the film, there is more understanding, of if not empathy her character. (By the way, I mean no criticism in comparing this film or its characters to other film.)Don't see this film if you're looking for a light-hearted comedy. It's not "Friends" or "Shallow Hall." It's a thoughtful film with an especially sweet performance by David Schwimmer.