A Belated Defense of Funny People

I saw Judd Apatow's Funny People for the first time last May at a test screening a few months before its release. Even in an incomplete form (although aside from a few excised lines, I'd be hard pressed to identify any real changes between the version I saw and the final product) I knew right away that the film was something special and an evolutionary leap forward from a filmmaker who I'd felt had been puttering around for the last couple years at a safe reserve. Apatow is of course the mega writer-producer witch a credit on seemingly every major American comedy of the last six years who was coming off the critical and financial success of his last directorial effort, 2007's Knocked Up, a film that has always made me ideologically queasy in spite of the fact that it's undeniably funny.

But Funny People was something different. It represented a bracingly mature departure from the filmmaker, albeit one that still found room to incorporate roughly a hundred to a hundred and fifty dick and balls jokes into the proceedings. Yes, the film was another overlong, shaggy-dog tale of perpetually immature men being forced to grow up while slumming through Southern California. Yet the film stubbornly refused to ignore the consequences of this behavior, following callow self-destructive acts to their natural conclusion no matter how uncomfortable or absent of catharsis they might be. More than anything, the film reminded me of James L. Brooks' seminal, mid 80's workplace comedy Broadcast News which deftly balanced mortifying, awkward social comedy with all too prescient assaults on the changing face of the media and an understated love triangle. If Funny People doesn't quite reach those heights it's at least aimed in that direction.

Yet, for as much as I loved the film, my hands were tied to talk about it. In addition to the standard non disclosure form I had signed before seeing the film, I was also assaulted by an overzealous goon from the research firm that was conducting the test screening who not only recognized my face but indicated that he'd been monitoring me online through various social networking sites that I belong to (you always dream that you'll be cyber-stalked by some overly-invested cute girl but in actuality it's almost always the dude who's currently dating your ex or some creepy, middle-aged, corporate stooge). After being told, in so many words, that I was being watched and would be punished if I talked about the film, I kept my mouth shut. And once the film was released my mouth remained shut, because clearly I was in no mood to do anyone any favors.

Sadly, Funny People probably could have used my voice (it certainly wouldn't have hurt it). The film opened to less than $23 million despite the presence of Adam Sandler and only went on to gross roughly twice that in this country. The standard knock against the film was that, for as funny as the first hour and a half were, the left turn the film takes when Sandler and Seth Rogen's characters depart for a weekend in Marin County to visit Sandler's ex (played by actress Leslie Mann, who also happens to be Apatow's real life wife) took the film in a direction that fans of the genre were unprepared and unwilling to go to. Essentially the film dials down the frat boy backslapping and inside baseball for more low key, situational humor. It's as though the film starts as Superbad and grows into Sideways, laying bare the human toll of Sandler's self-absorbed actions and skewing the audience's loyalties into a series of ever changing permutations. It's an incredibly bold departure by Apatow at a time where audiences have shown they want nothing more from comedies than to serve as extra bawdy, ninety-minute-long episodes of "Two and Half Men."

So is it any wonder the film tanked with the very same crowd that turned Knocked Up into a sensation? Knocked Up you'll remember adhered to the tried and true, young man comes of age formula, with all the hard earned life lessons hastily cut together into a montage to leave more room for Vegas drug freak outs, pop culture digressions and gratuitous crowning shots. No less an authority than ESPN's The Sports Guy, Bill Simmons (who's far from a refined film-goer but is a fair arbiter of taste for men of a certain age and interest), spent the whole summer working disparaging references to the film into podcasts and columns: oh but if only the film could have hewed more closely to the profanity strewn world of night clubs and bullshit sessions without changing midstream into a touchy-feely, midlife ennui, mope-fest of marital disappointment and hurt feelings.

Watching the film again on DVD I was struck by just how funny the first two thirds of the film still are. So much so it's almost understandable how people could find the transition to more sedate material so jarring. Apatow and his cast are too effective at crafting an unforced comedy of hazing and aggressive (passive and otherwise) free form riffing all while carefully observing insular, fickle human behavior (mostly of the young male variety). Apatow may not be a filmmaker with enormous range but he clearly knows his sweet spot. Having spent years as both a comedy writer and an aspiring stand up, Apatow gifts the film an air of casual authenticity, in particular the way Rogen's character, Ira, limps along the poverty line, living in the shadow of his vapid but more successful housemates.

Like Cameron Crow's Almost Famous, Funny People is a comedy about those who exist alongside the rich and famous, exploiting the wealth and access of their glamorous buddies so long as they never overstep their role and judge the demonstrably flawed celebrity they're joined at the hip with. Ira idolizes Sandler's George Simmons, having grown up watching such terrible-looking (yet oddly plausible) films as "Merman" and "Redo." In Ira, George has a walking cheering section who will validate his puerile behavior, weather his emasculating insults, chuckle at his lame jokes and more than anything desperately aspire to be like George. It's only when Ira tries to relate to George as a contemporary and friend, refusing to look the other way at the older man's selfish tendencies, does George bristle.

George (who we are quite consciously meant to interpret as a slightly skewered version of Sandler's persona via the use of archival footage of a younger Adam doing stand-up and goofing around in his dorm room throughout the film) is a manipulative demigod of self loathing not above using his fame to bed women half his age (while always acknowledging that they'll come away disappointed) or turning a Thanksgiving toast into an opportunity to work out new material on a group of fawning twenty-somethings.

The performance reminds me of Mickey Rourke's much lauded and similarly revealing work in last year's The Wrestler. Awards not withstanding though (and unfortunately, Mr. Sandler will be receiving none) I actually think this is the greater achievement. Sandler's work as George is lacerating in its self-assessment, painting the picture of a selfish, short-tempered, lonely man who is conscious of his wealth and fame (perhaps the most off-putting thing about the character is how quickly he resorts to talking about his money on stage as a crutch; at a time when seemingly half the country is unemployed, George bemoans how his possessions mostly make him miserable) and as a comedian knows exactly what to say to cause the most emotional harm to those around him. A scene late in the film where Ira, stuck in a moving vehicle, is personally and professional eviscerated by George in as punishing a verbal assault as I can remember in a recent film not written by Labute or Mamet. This is a deeply unsympathetic performance by Sandler. It exposes Sandler's fans to oceans of insecurity and rage in a performer known predominantly for making shitty family comedies while building on and expanding upon the promise shown in Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Drunk Love and James L. Brooks' Spanglish.

There's a Norma Desmond quality to Sandler's performance in the film. We see him isolated and friendless, puttering around his tomb-like mansion, reliving his glory days by watching his young comedians' special and crummy cgi-heavy movies on a wall of flat screen TV's. George relies upon his domestic staff for day-to-day human contact (Ira ultimately falls into this category, tasked with such menial jobs as calling the cable company because George can't find the Cavaliers game on). When he does venture outside the house he's surrounded by burnt-out cronies to lavish attention on him (Paul Reiser and Norm McDonald cut almost as pathetic a figure as Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner). Funny People doesn't quite paint a disparaging picture of fame but it would seem to argue that there's a an emotional toll to being a construct existing for the amusement of others. Or put another way, it's hard to imagine anyone coming away from the film with a new-found desire to become a stand-up comedian.

If I've neglected to address the actual plot of Funny People it's because, like the film itself, I recognize the importance of laying groundwork. As the trailer regrettably spoiled, George is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that forces him to re-evaluate his life, only to be miraculously cured. The catch is, as Ira points out, George learns nothing from this experience despite claims to the contrary. George uses his sickness as simply the latest excuse to justify his cowardly grasps at self fulfillment, consequences be damned. Weaseling his way back into the life of Laura,Mann's scorned ex-girlfriend, George finds her now married to a philandering businessman (Eric Bana, incredible in a very difficult role) with two young children. Sensing a fissure in their domestic bliss that he can exploit and bust apart, George seduces the unappreciated Laura, inserting himself into the absent husband and father role while a horrified Ira is forced to look on and deal with the emotional fall-out as it splashes back on Laura's children (played, by Apatow and Mann's actual daughters, Maude & Iris Apatow).

And it's here that Funny People loses some people. For ninety minutes, like Ira, we've grown comfortable with George's actions; his needy vying for attention and wild mood swings are placed within a consequence-free context of what is ostensibly a buddy comedy. We like George because Ira likes George and because Sandler possesses an easy charm; he's like the older brother who calls you an idiot, gives you a noogie then throws you the keys to a new sports car. Yet placed within a family dynamic of dinner time and music recitals George's behavior clangs loudly. In one of the film's best scenes, we watch George as he compulsively checks his text messages while the proud Laura weeps at her daughter's performance of "Memories" from Cats, only for him to try and defuse the situation by claiming his stoner buddy would have found the whole thing hilarious.

Because we've been conditioned to believe Sandler is our hero and because Bana has been cast in the role of typically boorish jock--that Bana uses his actual Australian accent for some reason only further paints him as a jerk--standing in the way of George attaining what he believes is true love, there's an uncomfortable disconnect between what we want to happen and what we deep down recognize should not. Sandler lacks the patience and empathy to truly love anyone but himself; he goes through the motions of supporting Laura and pledges to be a father to her children yet its obvious that he'll only betray and disappoint them given enough time. The tension of the last act now arrives from whether Ira will be able to prevent Laura from dissolving her marriage from a flawed but decent man to be with the raging asshole we like to call our protagonist.

That, my friends, is one brave goddamn choice and Apatow had to have recognized that audiences would have difficulty embracing such an unconventional approach. Stand-up as an art form is built upon instant gratification and immediate approval (if you do well, you get laughs) yet Funny People isn't a film about a comedy, it's a film about comedians. That the film is initially so successful at generating laughs early on is a plus, but it's almost beside the point. There are no lessons learned or happy endings here, just a bunch of adults who make a mess of their lives then have to go about the process of putting them back together.

If there's a consistent flaw to the film, it's Apatow's tendency to pander to the audience, over-explaining that which should be plainly obvious. Apatow writes in a female love interest for Ira ("Parks & Recreation's" Aubrey Plaza, hiding behind Tina Fey glasses) who seems to exist for no reason other than to mirror his own starfucking tendencies. Similarly, Laura tells us on two separate occasions how much Bana's Clarke is like George. Apatow is also still something of a clumsy filmmaker, too reliant on montage and allowing his characters to riff at length about their penises and whatever pop culture phenomenon of the moment catches their fancy.

Still, this is uncommonly ambitious filmmaking for a mainstream, summer comedy staring one of the world's biggest stars in a role well outside his comfort zone. Shortly after the film's release I told a friend that I was worried the film was destined to be Apatow's Jackie Brown. To wit, Tarantino's Pulp Fiction follow up was not only perceived to be a failure in the eyes of the public but was also, like Funny People, a mature new direction from a director who could do no wrong provided he did the same thing over and over again. Tarantino has spent the past decade steering his career away from the kind of heartfelt, unadorned stories found at the center of Jackie Brown and I fear that Apatow's first taste of directorial failure will also send him scurrying to safer territory. I hope I'm wrong and that Apatow's internal compass will continue to point him towards more personal, adult material. In the meantime I can only do my small part, however late as it may be. Funny People is a special film, one filled with human weakness and regret and a willingness to depict its characters as emotionally vulnerable and susceptible to temptation. These are not attributes one usually associated with "laugh riots" and that's sort of the point. Funny People deserved better and I can only hope, like Jackie Brown, it becomes re-appreciated by audiences down the road. In the meantime, at least I'm on the record about it. Funny People is one of the best films of the year.

AFI 2009 coverage - Bad Lieutenant, Precious, & Fish Tank

The AFI Film Festival returned to Hollywood this year, where it has been based for over three decade, albeit in a slightly diminished capacity. Proving that no one is immune to the economic downturn of the past few years, the festival relocated from the palatial Arclight Cinema at Sunset and Vine to the decidedly more econo-class Mann's Chinese 6 at Hollywood and Highland (as well as a couple days in Santa Monica to coincide with the feeding frenzy known as the American Film Market).

It's not simply location that's different about this year's edition though. Showcasing a streamlined selection of titles that leans heavily on films that premiered at Cannes and Toronto, AFI has been re-baptized as a "festival of festivals" which is something of a plus and a minus. For film fans who haven't had their passports stamped in France and Canada this year, the festival serves as a summation of many of the art films sure to litter year end best of lists while giving Oscar contenders a showy gala unveiling at the neighboring Grauman's Chinese theater. The downside however is that AFI becomes the latest festival to turn its back on showcasing unheralded, smaller films that lack prior festival cache.

But the show must go on and there are still films to be seen and appreciated. And free films at that! In one change of policy that everyone can get behind AFI has decided to forgo a traditional box office and has given away tickets to all of their screenings, including their gala events, relying upon sponsorship dollars to off-set the cost of lost ticket sales. It's an admirable acknowledgment of people's shifting priorities even if it has resulted in the strange occurrence of frequently half empty auditoriums and non-existent rush lines.

As for the films themselves? They remain, as with any film festival, a mixed bag.

The festival finally gave me an excuse to see Werner Herzog's lovingly batshit Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. Ever since a hastily edited trailer was leaked online this summer, introducing the expression "lucky crack pipe" into the vernacular and promising wall-to-wall Nic Cage scenery chewing, the film has been anticipated with bated breath from a certain segment of the film community. Specifically those who needed to find out whether Herzog had, in fact, turned Abel Ferrara's uncomfortably primal and guilt-ridden tale of a morally bankrupt police officer at crisis into a Tommy Wiseau film.

It comes of something of a relief and with a major honking caveat that the film is all I could have hoped for: a straight up hijacking of a direct-to-DVD vehicle by two singularly insane artists who don't care about your preconceptions or how many European territories the distributor has pre-sold the film to.

First of all, dispense with all attachments to Ferrara's original; the two films have as much in common as National Lampoon's Animal House and National Lampoon's Senior Trip. Cage stars as Lt. Terence McDonagh, a homicide detective with chronic back problems an escalating gambling debt and a high class hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendes) who all too happy to help him scam her johns out of drugs and cash. McDonagh gets roped into a multiple murder investigation and all that comes with it including an on edge partner (Val Kilmer, doing God knows what, then thankfully departing for much of the film) reluctant witnesses, meddling bosses and pesky Internal Affairs officers.

On paper there really is not much here. The script by cop show veteran William Finkelstein is so moldy it borders on kitsch; the film actually finds room for variations of both the weary black captain telling our antihero "his cowboy antics won't work this time" as well as McDonagh being ordered to turn over his gun because he's on suspension. Yet Herzog and Cage treat the script as merely an excuse for someone to sign their checks and the set as their own personal playground to explore whatever dimensions of the character fits their fancy that day.

Cage feels like switching to a different accent halfway through the film without provocation or explanation (it sounds somewhere between Jimmy Stewart and Al Pacino from the first Godfather after Michael's had his jaw broken)? Go for it! Herzog is in the mood to go off on a 90 second tangent where we view the action from the point of view of a couple of (imaginary) iguanas? Hey we've already hired the animal trainer, might as well get some bang for our buck! Entire scenes seem to exist exclusively as private jokes, employing bizarre linguistic shorthand or playing out in canted angles as though they were downloaded from an alien mother-ship and loosely re-translated. I'll put it another way: it's the kind of film that you a) fully expect Michael Shannon to show up in an uncredited role and b) when he does he's one of the more lucid characters in the film.

Frequently coked out of his mind and a slave to various nefarious masters pulling him in every direction, Cage gives a swinging from the chandeliers performance of slowly unnerving insanity that's a joy to behold if for no other reason than it's completely impossible to tell what he'll do next. It's the sort of role where simply shaving with an electric razor carries as much comedic menace as cutting off an infirm, elderly woman's oxygen.

Herzog treats the story with what could be charitably called an efficient perfunctoriness (the film's brusque resolution is sure to enrage most people) forcing you to set it aside and dig for a larger meaning. What emerges is the tale of a man driven by his demons to madness; unable to turn back or escape he is forced to plow forward. Bad Lieutenant by all traditional standards isn't "good" per say but it's never boring. A letter grade for this one feel almost beside the point, but let's go with a B.

Lest Bad Lieutenant corner the market on comically over-long titles there's also Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. The darling of the festival circuit (the film has won audience awards at Sundance and Toronto amongst others), the film is being positioned as this year's little film that could; an out of left field indie sensation that announces itself as not only a critical favorite but as a legitimate awards contender. And in hindsight this makes complete sense, because, as are most little indie films that could, it's a complete and total fraud.

Part Dangerous Minds part minstrel show, all manipulative button pusher, Precious tampers down the phony uplift under mountains of suffering and ugliness yet the redemptive, rise up formula is firmly in place. It's a film for people who equate squalor with integrity and can make it through Paul Haggis' Crash without doubling over in laughter.

The film stars newcomer Gabourey Sidibe as Clareece Precious Jones an illiterate, morbidly obese black teenager living in Harlem in the mid 80's. Precious (even the poor girl's name falls into the cruel irony category) lives well below the poverty line with her shrieking harpy of an abusive mother (comedian Mo'Nique who appears to have only been given the direction of "act like a dragon") who in addition to berating her daughter and frequently hurling heavy projectiles at her head is dependent on her daughter for the welfare checks she commands (casual racists are gonna have a field day with this one). Precious, only 16 and already held back several grades in school is pregnant with her second child, both children the result of being raped by her now absentee father. I could go on with the indignities she's forced to endure but clearly the point has been made, that life for this girl could be better.

But into all of this darkness comes a little light (literally) in the form of the beautiful Ms. Rain played by Paula Patton. Mrs. Rain teaches at a remedial school--the kind often filled with colorful cut-ups and flunkies who can serve as the film's version of the Sweathogs--and seems to take an honest to goodness interest in Precious, building up her self confidence and finding a place for her to live after she escapes her mothers clutches. Yet with so many outside factors weighing on Precious, is there any chance she can escape and start a new life?

In the first of *many* groaners found within the film, the opening credits for Precious are in hand-written scrawl of misspellings and child-like scribbling, setting the tone nicely for the pandering and on the nose melodrama that's to come. More importantly though it contains the wholly extraneous subtitle which sums up what makes Precious so odious in the first place. This is not a faithful retelling of a real person's life, honoring every horrible detail as it happened. This is a complete work of fiction now in its second iteration, ladling on human misery and degradation so that the upper middle class white people in the audience can feel alternately superior to and horrified by the living conditions of poor blacks.

The film is a Takashi Miike film for the Oprah Winfrey crowd (who not coincidentally is one of the film's executive producers and biggest champions), twisting human suffering into a game of unblinking one-upsmanship, feeding upon the stunned gasps of audiences: not enough that her mother just berated her and threw a heavy object at Precious' head? What if we make her fall down the stairs... while holding a newborn infant... then drop a television on their heads from above?

No ugly cultural stereotype goes untouched in painting a picture of Precious' hardship. Precious resents her skin color, fantasizing herself as a skinny pretty white girl and daydreaming about a light skinned boyfriend. It must be something of a perverse joke on director Lee Daniels' (Shadowboxer) part that instead of the typically white savior who usually shows up in these films to lift up our black hero, Precious is populated with attractive biracial guardians (including Patton and musicians Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey) who stand up for her instead.

Daniels wallows in the more unsightly details of Precious' life: the dank, decaying walls of her apartment, a crock of bubbling pig's feet cooking on the stove, a hunk of fried chicken hanging from Precious' face (I swear to God, I'm not making this stuff up). This is all the better to contrast them with Daniels' stylized, brightly lit fantasy sequences where Precious envisions herself at movie premieres and photos shoots. The film intends for these sequences to serve as a form of escape (in one instance the results of an STD test are abruptly pushed to the side to make way for a daydream about a modeling session) but they ultimately come across as mocking and disingenuous.

Precious rewards the audience for clucking its collective tongues on cue and feeling empathy for a young girl whose suffering falls somewhere just short of Jesus-on-the-cross level martyrdom but to what end? Is there anything to take away from this experience other than, yes, it's conceivable that one person can endure this much sorrow? Precious is fiercely well acted and will no doubt find its fans far outweighing its detractors. Everyone involved may end up with an Academy Award for their troubles. But make no mistake, the film is misery porn no matter how big a bow you tie around it. My grade: D+

A far less histrionic but much better film about a teenage girl in crisis is Fish Tank from Scottish filmmaker Andrea Arnold. Arnold isn't quite a household name in the world of art cinema despite racking up an Academy Award and two jury prizes from Cannes in the past six years, but she's already building an impressive reputation and comparisons to the likes of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach for her films about working class modern day Britain, albeit from a specifically female point of view.

Fish Tank follows in the footsteps of 2006's Red Road and it serves as an amplification of that film's strengths as well as weaknesses. Like Precious, Fish Tank centers around a poor 15-year-old girl, Mia (first-timer Katie Jarvis), living with a self-involved single mother (Kierston Wareing, tellingly only 12 years older than Jarvis in real life) as well as a disarmingly foul-mouthed younger sister (Rebecca Griffiths) in a cramped apartment. Mia's an angry young woman who fights with her mom and sister constantly. She seems to have isolated herself from all of her friends and has flunked out of school; her only release is to practice hip hop dancing by herself in an abandoned apartment in her complex.

But into all this unchecked estrogen enters mom's new boyfriend, Colin (Michael Fassbender, last seen too briefly in Inglorious Basterds). Colin represents something of an enigma, to both Mia and the audience: free-swinging and juvenile enough to be mom's new boy toy but also sensitive and considerate, encouraging Mia when no one else seems willing. Mia, likewise feels conflicted by the presence of the new man in the house, lashing out at him in one instant, then sweetly asking him for money or help as it becomes apparent he's one of the few people who seems to care. Yet the longer he remains in the house the more the barriers of their relationship are tested, placing the two of them onto a messy collision course that arrives in a predictable place but not in the way we expect.

Much of Fish Tank's strength is derived from the ever shifting interplay between Jarvis and Fassbender, feeding off of the queasy sensuality Arnold cultivates throughout the film. Thematically similar to but far less chaste than An Education, Fish Tank simmers with tension as the anxiety of impropriety looms over nearly every scene. Even the most tender of moments (Colin carries a pretending to be asleep to Mia to her bed, slowly removing her shoes and sweat pants before tucking her under a blanket) pulses with unease as two people, one who clearly should know better, seem destined towards transgression.

In fact Arnold does such an exemplary job of building and maintaining this tension (which technically is "sexual tension" but I feel dirty even referring to it as such) that by the time she finally addresses the issue head on, the film utterly deflates. Unfortunately Fish Tank continues for another half an hour after that, which is where it loses its way. A gifted director but mediocre screenwriter, Arnold relies upon clumsy plot mechanics and too-obvious-by-half symbolism (the last shot in particular is a howler) which equates a lot of strum and drang but not much progression or enriching of the characters. Fish Tank climaxes with a good deal of frenzy and angst but it seems to have been imported from a blunter, far less carefully observed film.

This may dull the overall impact of the film but doesn't quite negate it. Filmed in 4x3 Academy ratio, the film emphasis claustrophobia and tightly composed frames as though Mia can't even escape the small box she's been placed in on screen. It's a household where everyone lives on top of each other. Where everyone shows up to the breakfast table in various stages of undress and thin walls barely disguise the lovemaking in the next room. Arnold's unadorned style consisting of long, peering takes places us in the role of the voyeur, catching stray moments of both sadness and humanity as they unfold.

Jarvis gives a raw, animalistic performance, like a beaten dog backed into a corner. It's a performance built around rage and distrust and the film's at its most touching when we see Mia able to let down her guard enough to merely peacefully coexist with her family. But the story of the film is Fassbender who, I suspect, will not be a secret for much longer. With soft eyes and a boyish grin, Colin lets his thoughts run away from him, relating to the insecure and feral Mia as his contemporary as opposed to the burden her mother views her as. There's a decency to Fassbender's performance in a very difficult and complicated role; Colin is unmistakably acting inappropriately in the film yet it's easy to see how both he and Mia could fall into this trap. Between his work here, in Basterds and this past winter's Hunger, Fassbender has become the break-out actor of 2009, a performer who seemingly can do anything well.

Arnold has enormous upside as a filmmaker and her work with actors is second to none but I do wish however she'd gravitate to someone else's material. This is now the second straight film from her that derails in the last act as she struggles to incorporate unwieldy tonal shifts and dramatic plot turns, when her gift is clearly for understated character drama. Still, Fish Tank is a film to keep your eye out for; it opens early next year. My grade: B