Get Low
Get Low is a redemption story that doesn't feel hollow or fake. That's mostly because the protagonist, a Depression-era small-town Tennessee recluse named Felix Bush, is played by Robert Duvall in a wildly imaginative performance that may be the finest he's ever turned in.
Duvall's film career spans more than four decades, and he's won a pile of accolades, including an Oscar for Tender Mercies, another redemption parable. However, he's usually been more authentic in supporting roles, many of them unforgettable; when he stretches out, he tends to force his effects.
But Duvall doesn't strike a false moment in his portrayal of Felix, a grizzled cuss with a bogeyman myth around him. Felix hatches a bizarre plan: to throw himself an elaborate funeral party before the fact, at which his neighbors are invited to tell stories about him. Bill Murray plays Frank Quinn, a sardonic undertaker who's only too glad to accept Felix's proposition since, as he observes to his young assistant Buddy (Lucas Black), he's that rare funeral director whose business, against the dictates of nature, has fallen on hard times. Under Frank's guidance, the fete becomes a lottery with the winner set to inherit Felix's land.
