Bernie 2012

[8.8/10] What I enjoy about Richard Linklater’s films at this particular cultural moment is that they are a tonic to the era of mystery boxes. In a period where seemingly every movie, T.V. show, or other story feels the need to tease the audience with hidden clues and shocking reveals, Linklater’s slice-of-life bona fides feel refreshingly up front. A true crime podcast might make the story of Bernie Tiede into one of overdramatic whodunnit with act breaks and tantalizing details. But in Linklater’s hands, a story of domestic murder and cover-up becomes almost amusingly mundane. That is a godsend.

Bernie relays the story of its title character, a gregarious and preternaturally well-liked member of the East Texas community of Carthage. Bernie earns the trust and affections (ambiguously romantic or platonic) of Marjoire Nugent, a local rich widow and renowned sourpus who managed to alienate everyone in town, including her own family members. What follows is a story of control, killing, cover-up, and courtroom drama that fascinates and entertains.

And yet, while the unique and at times cryptic details of the events that would lead Bernie to shoot his benefactor four times in the back and hide her body in a freezer should seemingly be the main event here, under Linklater’s watch, it almost feels like a sideshow. The real joy of this movie, and the director’s real focus, is on the colorful characters involved, the distinctive ecosystem of this region of Texas, and the denizens who populate it.

That comes through in the talking heads of real Carthage residents, which are an absolute highlight of the film. By mixing genuine residents, some of whom knew the players, into his dramatization, Linklater not only gives the piece a faux-documentary feel, but he captures the genuine wit and humor from the town’s gossip and pecking order and sense of rectitude beyond the laws of god or man. The “five regions of Texas” segment is hilarious and low-key iconic, but every talking head moment carries a certain charm, comic bent, and universality through specificity. Our towns and communities may not resemble Carthage, but seeing the same finger-pointing and sense of communal heroes and villains by acclimation rings true regardless of the thoroughly enjoyable East Texas packaging.

That sense of recognizable if outsized humanity comes through in the film’s “characters” as well. Jack Black soars as the eponymous central figure of the movie, giving arguably his best performance. The crux of this film, its guiding thesis of a sense of moral injustice, depends on Bernie Tiebe seeming like the most kind-hearted, friendly, accommodating, saintly individual who ever walked the earth, and somehow Black manages to exude that energy from start to finish. He makes this unusual, stealthily complicated man seem like the singing, do-gooding angel among men, finding notes of cheer, deception, compassion, and pathos in someone who feels too good to be real.

The same goes for Shirley MacLaine as Marjory and Matthew McConaughey as “Danny Buck”, a local prosecutor who puts Bernie behind bars. Just as the movie requires something close to divinity from Bernie to work, it also needs Marjorie to seem like the devil incarnate, and MacLaine is up to the challenge. The sense of her coldness, demandingness, and control sets the stage for the film’s grand, mortal act, makes it explicable, and flips the psychological sense of aggressor and victim. By the same token, McConaughhey does well in his “only sane man” role as a state attorney who is crusading for right legal justice, but harbors both some biases against Bernie and some blinders to a greater moral framework at play, while not being above some craftiness of his own.

That’s the only major knock against Bernie. Through its he-said-she-said conversations about who Bernie is, who Marjorie was, what led to the killing, and how Bernie and Danny should be treated in its aftermath, the movie gestures towards the moral complexities of this situation, and even honors them in places. But it’s also clear that Linklater, who would later house the real Bernie Tiede during an appeal, is in the tank for both his protagonist and his real life counterpart. As an entertaining yarn, free from the burdens of fidelity, Bernie is a delight. As an adaptation of a true story, one framed with clear good guys, bad guys, martyrs and oppressors, it feels more than a little slanted and arguably even irresponsible in places.

That is the double-edged sword of Linklater’s down-to-earth approach to filmmaking. In a more stylized retelling, one further away in time and psychological space from the genuine events in Carthage, Bernie would have that safe veneer of poetic license. But even with big name performers like Black, MacLaine, and McConaughey in tow, and a certain subtle sense of a heightened reality to everything, Linklater’s style makes the movie feel like he just dropped into East Texas and started the camera rolling.

But that straightforward approach benefits the film as a cinematic experience even if it throws some dust into the air as a fair description of real events. However much the movie falters in impartially relaying the true story, it soars in placing the viewer within this community, understanding its metes and bounds and third rails, and accounting for why a trial had to be moved because the accused was too well-liked for the state to have a reasonable shot at convicting him.

That’s what this movie is about. It’s as much about the community that witnessed these grisly events as it’s about the events themselves, and about the man so kind, so considerate, so unfailingly compassionate and friendly, that he could literally get away with murder. Linklater doesn't hide the ball at any point with that. From the film’s first moment to its last, he lets you know where his focus is and isn’t. It’s firmly on this impossibly nice mortician, the people who would sooner have him beatified than jailed, and this small but fascinating corner of the world that no mystery box could ever hope to contain.