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The Pallbearer (1996)
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Overview
User Rating:
Release Date:
3 May 1996 (USA) moreTagline:
A comedy about life-long crushes, mistaken identity and one really bad eulogy. morePlot:
A young man's life is thrown into a loop when he is asked to be a pallbearer for the funeral of a classmate he doesn't remember, and his old high school crush temporarily returns to town. full summary | add synopsisPlot Keywords:
NewsDesk:
(2 articles)
Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloe Moretz and Richard Jenkins Will Let Me In (From MovieWeb. 1 October 2009, 11:35 AM, PDT)
‘Cloverfield’ Director Sinks His Teeth Into Vampire Film
(From Ugo MovieBlog. 25 September 2008, 2:02 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
Often overlooked, but delightful film more (51 total)Cast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| David Schwimmer | ... | Tom Thompson | |
| Gwyneth Paltrow | ... | Julie DeMarco | |
| Michael Rapaport | ... | Brad Schorr | |
| Toni Collette | ... | Cynthia | |
| Carol Kane | ... | Tom's Mother | |
| Michael Vartan | ... | Scott | |
| Bitty Schram | ... | Lauren | |
| Jean De Baer | ... | Suzanne DeMarco | |
| Elizabeth Franz | ... | Aunt Lucille | |
| Mark Margolis | ... | Philip DeMarco | |
| Barbara Hershey | ... | Ruth Abernathy | |
| Edoardo Ballerini | ... | The Job Interviewer | |
| Matthew Faber | ... | Jared | |
| Robin Morse | ... | Sylvie | |
| Tony Machine | ... | The Undertaker |
Additional Details
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for some sexuality and language.Parents Guide:
Add content advisory for parentsRuntime:
98 minCountry:
USALanguage:
EnglishColor:
ColorAspect Ratio:
1.85 : 1 moreSound Mix:
Dolby DigitalCertification:
Iceland:L | Netherlands:6 | Australia:M | Brazil:14 | Finland:K-12 | Portugal:M/12 | South Korea:18 | Spain:7 | Sweden:7 | USA:PG-13 | UK:12 | Singapore:PGFun Stuff
Trivia:
The roller coaster Tom and Julie ride is actually the Blue Streak, which is located at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. moreGoofs:
Continuity: The legal pad Tom scripts his phone call on is yellow in medium shot and white in the closeup inserts. moreQuotes:
Ruth Abernathy: [In restaurant, in front of Julie and her parents] So, this is Julie! Why don't you tell her, Tom, what you did to your best friend's mother?Tom: He wasn't my best friend. I hardly knew him!
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Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for The Pallbearer (1996)| Recent Posts (updated daily) | User |
|---|---|
| Song help | radioactiveand |
| Two questions | colujomes |
| Song in resturant | lillegaard-1 |
| LAST SONG??? | matheusrosito |
| Who is Bill? | rags086 |
| Song at the end | Kitkatcandybar3 |
Recommendations
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Maybe it was the great, eclectic soundtrack with the likes of Django Reinhardt, Herbie Hancock, Perry Como, Curtis Mayfield, Neil Young and Richie Havens, or maybe it was the dark and subtle bits of humor that pleasantly surprised me throughout the movie, but I really enjoyed this one.
We meet Tom, a forlorn twenty-something man-child still living at home and struggling to take control of his life, played by David Schwimmer of "Friends" fame. Tom gets a call from a woman who mistakenly believes he knew her recently deceased son. He goes along with it, presumably to save her the added grief of knowing her son had no close friends. Of course, Tom's accommodating nature backfires and he's asked to give the eulogy for a man he never knew. This sets up a scene with the kind of dark humor seen throughout the movie that audiences are either delighted with or immediately turned off by.
At the funeral, Tom meets Julie, his unrequited high school crush, played with genuine emotion and winsome grace by Gwyneth Paltrow. Thus begins two relationships that play out over the duration of the film --one with Grace, the bereft mother of the friend Tom never had, played by Barbara Hershey, and the other with Julie.
Yes, this movie owes much, in terms of plot and characters, to "The Graduate," with Hershey playing the counterpart to Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson. But it turns out to be much more than just an update of the '60s classic. The audience really gets to know the inner turmoil both Tom and Julie are going through -- Tom, both for the guilt of becoming unwittingly involved with Grace, and for also being involved with Julie at the same time, and Julie, for being torn between striking out on her own to escape her overbearing parents and getting into a deep relationship with Tom.
There are a couple of sideplots going on with Tom's friends -- Michael Rapaport's character getting married to a woman his friends don't like, and Michael Vardan's married character, making a move on Julie, which obviously infuriates Tom. And Carol Kane as Tom's mom, is precious. In one scene, he is livid after she bursts into his room unannounced. After she receives a brief scolding for not knocking, she replies "I only wanted to see if you wanted some ice cream," to which he replies "A little."
Schwimmer nails the role, with his underplayed, tacit sadness about his so-far-failed attempt at making a responsible life for himself. And Paltrow, well, can she ever miss? Whether for the dark humor, spot-on acting, or superb soundtrack, this one is definitely worth a viewing.