Eulogy is centered around the death of a family patriarch, Edmund Collins (Rip Torn). After the death comes the funeral, which is where this story takes place, from the time of his death up until the funeral, where this quite dysfunctional family has to live together for the next few days. An ordinary cast could not have done the job that this one did. They turned what seemed to be a regular movie into a pretty funny movie. I guess it was supposed to be a dark comedy, but it was not all that dark to me. The character development was quite good, for a movie that featured so many key players, it manages to let you get to know just about everyone pretty well.
Kate Collins (Zooey Deschanel) is the granddaughter of Edmund and is asked by her grandmother to deliver the eulogy, something she was hesitant about doing, considering she really knew very little about the man. Despite her constant asking, her family could not come up with any nice stories about her grandfather to tell. Zooey is pretty much the straight (wo)man in this comedy.
Daniel Collins (Hank Azaria) is Edmund's son and Kate's father. Daniel was a child actor whose big fame came when he coined a catch phrase in a peanut butter commercial, making him Edmund's favorite son. He and Skip Collins (Ray Romano) were my favorite characters.
Skip Collins is Edmund's son and Kate's uncle. Skip was the son who was always trying to get his father's attention and felt he was the unloved one because of Daniel's success. He was probably the funniest character in the movie, along with his twin sons and Daniel.
The twin sons of Skip are named Fred and Ted Collins (Curtis and Keith Garcia). They are at that age where pretty much everything turns them on, so when their aunt and her "lifemate" showed up, it was all fun for them.
There are many more characters and dysfunctional family situations here that I could not get to them all in a short review, but this movie turned out better than I would have thought and is worth watching at least once. 7/10
