Take one dead girl, a current boyfriend, a former boyfriend and a really young funeral director with a bad earring, and it’s got to be a formula for a comedic success, right? Not if you’re watching “Wake.”
Viewers are set up for some chuckles when the current beau (Andy Gorzalski) meets the old beau (Todd Bishop), who is a jerk in every sense of the word. Laughs are also expected from the scenes with the twenty-two-year-old funeral director (Ryan Plato) and his lack of corpse preparation, and then the big payoff is all set to break out when the rest of the grieving come to pay their last respects. Unfortunately, none of these scenes pan out comedically, and the film is just kind of sad. Honestly, the old boyfriend, Trip, doesn’t even seem like the kind of guy who would show up at a funeral, and the other boyfriend, Ben, comes across as a whiny loser. His desire to ask the corpse to marry him is more creepy than touching and funny.
This film is ill-conceived and slightly depressing, which doesn’t really work for a comedy. Perhaps the next funeral can be for this DVD.
