The boundaries of documentary drama: Bernie

Richard Linklater's Bernie bears little if any resemblance to his much-acclaimed Before-During-After Midnight trilogy (or ongoing series) - none of the romantic wistfulness or self-scrutiny (or self-absorption, if you prefer) or struggles w/ relationships. It's a film that defies classification and plays along the boundaries of documentary and comedy - failing, ultimately, because it's neither, not funny or moving enough as a drama, not "real" enough as nonfiction. Based on true events, as they say, and probably pretty closely based, RL wrote the screenplay with the journalist who did the source story in Texas Monthly: about a young man who moves to the small E. Texas town of Carthage, becomes beloved in the community, befriends a wealthy and reclusive widow, becomes her servant and perhaps her lover, kills her in what seems a fit of rage, hides her body, is finally found out and convicted of murder 1, and serving time today (as so often, we see footage of the real Bernie over the credits - in fact, we see star Jack Black interviewing Bernie, a nice touch). Jack Black does a  good job here - he can be a very annoying comic actor, but the annoyance is essential to the character I think. RL also finds man very colorful Carthage folks to interview throughout the film - these are highlights, and I don't know how much they're scripted or how much they're based on quotes on the original story. Either way, pretty good. The downfall is that the film is told almost entirely through talking heads and feels very, very slow - and of course we can see all around the edges - we wouldn't trust the unctuous Black/Bernie for a moment. So are the Carthage folks just stupid, so easily conned? The film would lead us to think so - Bernie must have been more obviously likable and less nutty than JB plays him - playing him more "straight" would make the film more credible, but might dull the edge, too. Though Netflix lists this as comedy/drama, to me it's almost as much a documentary as several others that extensively re-create scenes - e.g., Thin Blue Line, Stories We Tell - though, more than those films, this one isn't design to reveal hidden truths but to re-create an event in the (regional) news that has already been fully revealed, or uncovered. In other words, there's no mystery or surprise here - compare w/ say, Dear Zachary, if you want a re-created doc w/ lots of surprise - and as a result it feels like a pretty long journey to an end we can anticipate from almost the first frame.