Functional Privates

YOU HAVE TO ADMIRE the British: when they make a movie featuring a potentially cute, domesticated animal, they don't flinch at decapitating it and serving it up on a platter. A Private Function, touted as the resurrection of classic English comedy, is not for those who feel squeamish at the thought of a diarrhetic pig in their living room. Like a London bag lady who still bothers to curtsy, though, this film carries itself with a reserved sense of class, quite above movies like Bachelon Party or Porky's. Clearly the cardinal sin for British funnymen is not to be disgusting but to be American about it.

Basically a "Revenge Of The Rarified Nerds," Function is a tale of social scatology. The hero, Gilbert Chilvers (Michael Palin of Monty Python fame), is a man shat upon. His story is a struggle for status, which in the throes of postwar means meat All the town aristocrats are dining on veal and steak while poor Gilbert meekly spoons Spam from a tin.

His wife, Joyce (Maggic Smith), never ceases to grind this fact into Gilbert's muddled brain. Gilbert vainly tries to advance himself as a chiropodist, i.e. someone who scrapes corns and fungus off the bottoms of other's feet, but he attracts the hatred of the local surgeon, Dr. Swaby (Denholm Elliott), who unceremoniously boots him out of his office. At this point Gilbert decides to go undercover.

Dressed in a ridiculous trench coat, he sets off under the cover of night and abducts a succulent pig (Betty) from a local farm. The porker, however, harbors two secrets. First, it is an unlicensed pig, covertly purchased by Swaby and his two friends, the accountant Allardyee (Richard Griffiths) and the barrister Lockwood (John Normington) and planned as the guest of honor at a fete to celebrate the royal wedding. Secondly, the pig is subject to frequent and liquid bowel movements, especially when brought into a strange environment like the Chilver's living room.

Unfortunately, Gilbert's tender heart finds it impossible to kill the pig and prefers to let it carry out its pungent existence in his suburban home. Meanwhile, the evil Ministry of Food inspector Wormold (Bill Paterson) is keeping his Big Brother-esque eye on him. A man with neither smell nor taste, Wormold is fast becoming suspicious of Gilbert.

To make matters worse, Swaby and company have also discovered Gilbert's ruse and are threatening to prosecute him. This leads to a conformation over Betty's late in which Joyce and Swaby team up against Gilbert and Allardyee, the latter of whom looks so much lick the aforementioned swine that his sympathy seems entirely logical. His wife and enemy win out, and Gilbert is forced to go to Swaby's party, where the nasty doctor seduces his wife and cats his pet.

Now this all sounds like pretty horrible stuff out of which to make a light comedy, but Function is--if anything--too tame. Like all British comedy, the pace of this film seems as thick and trudging as cold plum pudding. Bennett spends the first half hour erecting the framework of setting and plot within which his characters work An American used to getting his hamour in rapid-fire bursts can find this very tedious indeed.

CUT EVERYTHING in Britain idles before it starts, and once this film gets going, it really spec along Maggic Smith is fantastic--both in the nagging shrew she shows to Gilbert and the fawning but conniving social climber she reveals to Swaby. She also captures the essence of the British housewife, a special mis of dignified pretention and repressed horniness expressed in statements like, "My dear, this calls for sexual intercourse."

Palin's Gilbert is the perfect dramatic foil for her. In contrast with her vivacious cunning, he can merely smile sadly and wrinkle the crow's feet around his eyes as the world shits on him. His affection for Betty even suggests that he likes playing the schlomozzle.

The three local aristocrats are very impressive, squatting over the toilet bowl, that is Gilbert's life. They are like three hidcous pagan idols Elliot's Swaby is a power-hungry manifestation of Blind Ambition, who gleefully leaps at every opportunity to torture Gilbert Griffiths' Allardyee is towering Gluttony, who constantly stuffs his face with chocolates, wafers, seal paines and even his beloved Betty And Normington's Lockwood is personified Snobbery, who looks and acts exactly like John Gielgud. At all times, these societal demi-gods keep their aristocratic buttocks firmly over the lid of Gilbert's private hell.

Admittedly, A Private Function does not reveal anything new and different about the English aristocracy. The film is different because it immerses the viewer in the bowels of society so suitably that he does not feel unclean himself. Bennett's low-key attitude keeps the film from rising above the level of an average Monty Python episode, but when compared with lawdry American attempts like wild Life and Arenging Angel, A Private Function almost deserves its royal welcome.