Bernie

You should have the opportunity to experience the movie the way I did, in complete ignorance, enjoying its every weird turn.

Gaudily vibrant, at times morbidly funny.

This is writer-director Richard Linklater at his wry, whimsical best, and considering he was the filmmaker behind 1993′s “Dazed and Confused,” that makes the movie something of a milestone.

Jack Black gives the performance of his career in the title role of Bernie, under the pitch-perfect direction of his “School of Rock” director, Richard Linklater, who expertly crafts a black comedy with a deceptively sunny surface. It’s the best movie I’ve seen all spring.

I had to forget what I knew about Black. He creates this character out of thin air, it’s like nothing he’s done before, and it proves that an actor can be a miraculous thing in the right role.

Weirdly funny, inspiring film.

The wonder of Black’s performance here is its empathy and balance: inasmuch as he can disappear into any role, he dissolves into this one with no hint of mocking remove. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

Richard Linklater’s Bernie is the rarest of rarities: a truly unexpected film. It might be classified as a black comedy, for it deals with the murder of an 81-year-old woman in a fashion that is not exactly tragic.

No use trying to describe Bernie. It’s a one-of-a-kind inspiration. You will never feel closer to a convicted killer.

Interspersing “real” people with professional actors, Linklater creates a vivid, gossipy Greek chorus that serves as a kind of collective unreliable narrator — an altogether appropriate stance given the moral gray zone the sweetly confounding Bernie inhabits.