The most striking guest is a mysterious dwarf named Peter (Peter Dinklage) who shows up uninvited, reveals a secret, demands a share of the family fortune and spends much of the film hog-tied and abused. Peter's short stature and homosexuality are presented as an obvious (albeit comic) source of menace, and the script - which goes out of its way to make every other character at least fitfully endearing - never treats him as anything but a ridiculous inconvenience.
Farces aren't supposed to be polite, but Peter's treatment feels singularly cheap. It takes an infamous, sardonic Randy Newman lyric at face value: "Don't want no short people 'round here."
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