Imagine a murder case in which the defendant is so beloved in the community that the prosecutor asks for (and gets) a change of venue.
That’s the case in affluent Carthage, Texas, where Bernie Tiede, an assistant funeral-parlor director, stands accused of murdering the town’s wealthiest, nastiest widow and stashing her body in a freezer for nine months.
Jack Black gives the performance of his career in the title role of “Bernie,’’ under the pitch-perfect direction of his “School of Rock’’ director, Richard Linklater, who expertly crafts a black comedy with a deceptively sunny surface. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all spring.
The script, which Linklater wrote with Skip Hollandsworth, wisely hews closely to the latter’s 1998 true-life account in Texas Monthly — because, frankly, you couldn’t make up a story anywhere near this satisfying.
It’s 1989 when Bernie meets Marjorie Nugent (a vanity-free Shirley MacLaine), then in her late 70s, when planning her husband’s funeral. A sourpuss who’s estranged even from her own family, Marjorie at first rejects Bernie’s overtures of friendship.
But Bernie, a friend to one and all in Carthage — especially its widows — wins over this hard case, soon becoming her personal assistant and traveling around the world with her in first-class accommodations.
This being a small town, there’s speculation about the exact nature of their relationship: Bernie, a devout Christian who never reciprocated interest from women closer to his own age, is widely assumed to be gay.
Overall, though, folks are happy that Bernie — whose community activities include running the local theater group and playing the leads in productions like “The Music Man’’ — is being showered with material rewards he frequently shares with the less fortunate.
By Bernie’s account, Marjorie becomes increasingly possessive and demanding until, one day, he snaps — shooting her with a gun bought for killing armadillos, and stashing her in the freezer.
The crime goes unnoticed for a while, since only Marjorie’s stockbroker misses the miserable widow’s presence. When the body’s finally discovered and Bernie readily confesses, practically nobody in Carthage can believe it.
Nobody, that is, except for prosecutor Danny Buck Davidson (an excellent Matthew McConaughey, discovered by Linklater for “Dazed and Confused’’), who has to move the trial 30 miles out of town to secure a conviction.
Many filmmakers would camp up the material, or condescend to the characters.
Linklater, to his credit, doesn’t.
Despite adopting a subtly effeminate voice and manner, Black plays it totally straight (and displays his singing chops), as do MacLaine and McConaughey.
Linklater puts many real Carthage townspeople on camera to talk about Bernie Tiede — they’re often funny, yes, but they’re treated with the kind of respect and generosity of spirit that makes “Bernie’’ such a treat.