Mona Dearly (Bette Midler) was not well-loved. So when her Yugo plunges off a cliff into the river, the entire town is ready to pop the champagne. But Sheriff Rash (Danny DeVito) doesn't believe that Mona's death was an accident. He starts investigating and discovers numerous people wanted the caustic matriarch dead, including her husband (William Fichtner) who is having an affair with a local waitress (Jamie Lee Curtis), her son (Marcus Thomas) who is business partnered with Rash's soon to be son-in-law, Bobby (Casey Affleck). As suspicion and fear worm their ways through the town, old secrets of all kinds begin to emerge. This is almost exactly like the 2011 critical favorite Bernie, except that its not based on a true story. Drowning Mona is also presented much more as a mystery comedy, even though the culprit is telegraphed almost immediately. I generally find that boring, but it had enough comedy between the characters that I didn't want to just hit fast forward to the credits. The weakest link is probably Neve Campbell, whose effervescent schoolgirl routine fell flat for me.
This is definitely a mid-range comedy, the kind that comes on late at night on family cable networks like USA. I can't imagine buying it but it didn't make me want to throw myself off a cliff, so there's that.
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