"At first blush, Bernie looks like the kind of mock-documentary perfected by Christopher Guest. But stay awhile, and Bernie turns into something quite different - more gentle, ambiguous, troubling and wistful. Based on the real-life story of Carthage, Texas, funeral director Bernie Tiede, and his co-dependent friendship with wealthy widow Marjorie Nugent, Bernie unfolds into many rich narrative strands: love story, southern Gothic, and finally tragedy and legal thriller, when Mrs. Nugent's body turns up one day in her own freezer chest. Interspersing 'real' people with actors, Linklater creates a vivid, gossipy Greek chorus - an altogether appropriate stance given the moral gray zone the sweetly confounding Bernie inhabits." - Ann Hornaday, Washington Post