Comedies about death often impart a great deal of wisdom about life, and Passed Away (1992) is no exception.  It’s a rather formulaic tale about the chaos that ensues when family patriarch Jack Warden suffers a fatal heart attack.  Warden’s widow (Maureen Stapleton) and grown kids (Bob Hoskins, William Petersen, Pamela Reed and Frances McDormand) reunite to stage an Irish wake and send him off to the afterlife with a bang.

Thankfully the formula is broken a few times, and when that happens, Charlie Peters’ film soars.  The presence of a mysterious, beautiful woman (Nancy Travis) piques Hoskins’ interest, and soon he is in the middle of a full-blown mid-life crisis. All of Warden’s sons and daughters have similar personal issues to work through, but once nun McDormand arrives from Central America with an illegal alien in tow, the script sharpens considerably and the pace really quickens.

It’s a relationship movie highlighting rapport between very different siblings, parents and children, men and women, birth and death, tradition and vogue, enticing mystery and prosaic life.  How things and people interrelate is more important here than specific character depth, and nowhere is this more apparent than the prelude to the finale, where the parade of limousines and cars traveling to the funeral is punctuated by people constantly switching vehicles and positions.

Passed Away is clumsily edited and some viewers have questioned the casting of Britisher Bob Hoskins in this American scenario, but I feel he delivers an excellent performance which anchors the film.  My rating:  ✪ ✪ ✪.  (9:2).