B

Writer-director Richard Linklater brings a shambling, easygoing charm to this unlikely comedy based on a real-life Texas murder case. And Jack Black, of all people, drolly essays the title character, a mortician who kills one of the town’s most hated residents, a wealthy widow and tight-fisted banker who makes him her trusted aide, and then literally keeps her body on ice for months. Shirley MacLaine plays his victim, and Matthew McConaughey the publicity-seeking DA who brings him to justice.

At first blush the case of sweet-natured Bernie Tiede, who was found guilty of murdering cantankerous octogenarian Marjorie Nugent in the east Texas town of Carthage in 1997, might not seem ripe material for such treatment. But working with Skip Hollandsworth from the writer’s 1998 Texas Monthly article “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas,” Linklater has fashioned a cheekily oddball black comedy in which the locale becomes as central to the plot as the characters. That’s because they punctuate the story with direct-to-the-camera observations from town residents, played by actors beautifully chosen for their natural fit with their parts. Their contributions not only add local color but reveal the Carthage mindset, turning the place into a kind of mildly madcap Mayberry where the residents seem familiar but simultaneously slightly off-kilter.

As to the plot, it’s pretty straightforward. Tiede arrives in Carthage and takes the job of assistant mortician at the local funeral parlor. A prim, mustached fellow with a slightly effeminate air, he’s exceptionally good at his job, doing excellent work in preparing the deceased for viewing but also in comforting the bereaved. And he’s a go-getter otherwise, enthusiastically participating in community activities (Little League baseball, amateur musical theatre) and generally helping out folks however he can.

His go-the-extra-mile inclination is tested, however, when he makes his usual follow-up visit to Nugent after her banker-husband’s funeral. At first she rebuffs him, but gradually—though grimly—comes to accept him, and before long the two have become an odd couple, going on trips and arts excursions together. But she’s a demanding, controlling person, turning Bernie into a virtual servant who finally cracks and does away with her. He then hides her body in a freezer and, pretending she’s still alive, uses her fortune on charitable enterprises, making him a local hero. But eventually Nugent’s estranged relatives, goaded by her financial advisor, initiate a search that turns up the corpse and leads to a prosecution headed by flamboyant good-ole-boy DA Danny Buck Davidson.

“Bernie” can be thought of as a sort of small-town “Reversal of Fortune,” and though it’s not as sharp or wittily structured as Barbet Schroeder’s film, it has other virtues—among them a gentle, strangely compassionate treatment of the morbid goings-on and strong lead performances. Black, while not exactly underplaying, tones down his customary brash quality to portray the precise, somewhat prissy Tiede, and MacLaine fearlessly grabs onto Nugent’s fierce, nasty center, while occasionally offering glimpses of the vulnerability beneath. As for McConaughey, he seems to have found his proper metier playing media-savvy lawyers, if this and “The Lincoln Lawyer” are anything to go by.

But “Bernie” wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun without the periodic excerpts of locals offering their views on the case. One might expect Linklater’s approach to them to be snarky or condescending, but instead it’s very affectionate, presenting the folks as engaging, down-to-earth and perceptive, if sometimes misguided, and the actors have been carefully selected to get the most out of the well-calibrated lines without overdoing the folksiness. The effect is reminiscent of the stream-of-consciousness ramblings that the writer-director fashioned for his first picture, the delightful “Slacker,” back in 1991.

“Bernie” isn’t slick technically, but Bruce Curtis’ production design, Rodney Becker’s art direction and Karl Perkins’ costumes capture the atmosphere and period in a happily unforced fashion, while Dick Pope’s cinematography and Sandra Adair’s editing are crisp while giving the narrative and performances plenty of breathing-room. Lisa Brown Leopold’s choice of background music is spot-on as well. One ordinarily worries about movies that have more than twenty producers, executive producers and co-producers credited, but in this case it appears they played well together.

“Bernie” would work nicely in a double-bill with another Texas-based true-crime black comedy, “I Love You Phillip Morris,” not least because both represent career stretches for two popular comedians (Black and Jim Carrey)—though their tone is quite different. One hopes it won’t share the earlier film’s fate of disappearing quickly from public view. It deserves far better.