Film review: A funeral comedy becomes a Thai travel report? There is a “cautionary tale.”

In the cinema there are dramas and tragicomedies and whatever indie films they are “Cautionary Tale” turns out.

It begins as a funny, dark comedy about two men fighting over the ashes of their loved ones.

Neil (Ted Limpert) lost his ex-wife and daughter in a car accident. Jake (Andy Baldeschwiler) lost his wife. And stepdaughter.

They used to be “best friends.” So blame is thrown back and forth. About “brake pads”. The phrase “Jake the homewrecker” appears as well as “Neil the cuckold,” and who wouldn’t want “my daughter in a box” on their “table”?

And then Neil, who plays a children’s television entertainer named Safety Sam, finds out that his show’s revival depends on sales in Asian markets. His contract stipulates that he goes to Thailand and is happy to meet the buyers.

Nice change of scenery, free travel, a chance to mourn.

But Neil fights back, tries to emphasize that he’s more than just this one character, picks up the guitar again and tries his hand at bland folk-pop. And he makes the contractually obligated trip.

This hijacks the film, which doesn’t really deal well with grief as Neil makes his way across the country and strikes up a friendship with a musical expat (Steve Calalang) and a Thai singer (Napak Boonruang), who needs help translating her lyrics into English and who may be the woman who brings Neil back to life. Or not.

There’s an emotionless emptiness in the travel and Thai sequences that leave me cold.

There’s even an off-mike issue with many scenes and characters, both on camera and off, set in New York that don’t feature in the Thai travel and negotiations. There are elephants in Thailand, which Neil’s daughter loved, and better local sound engineers.

The germ of a good indie dramedy idea is there. But the execution – script, direction, acting and editing – never goes far enough beyond amateurishness to be touching.

Rating: not rated, profanity

Cast: Ted Limpert, Napak Boonruang, Matias Proietti and Steve Calalang

Credits: Screenplay and direction: Christopher Zawadzki. A FilmHub release on Tubi, Apple TV

Running time: 1:27