It's Kind of a Funny Story (Review)

How I ended up seeing It’s Kind of a Funny Story is, dare I say, kind of a funny story. I had recently gained possession of a free pass to see an advance screening of the latest “Hilary Swank gets all superwoman on y’all” film Conviction, but alas when I arrived at the theater the screening had already been overbooked. Fearing I had wasted the trip, I ponied up and decided to see It’s Kind of a Funny Story to get my increasingly frequent Zach Galifianakis fix.

Funny Story is one of those movies that has just about everything going for it. The cast is great, the writing/directing team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck is coming off a couple of critically adored films (Half Nelson and Sugar), but for one reason or another it’s unable to rise above passable entertainment. You’ll probably be smiling through most of it, but it succumbs too often to the usual clichés and indie movie tricks that it’s all a bit familiar. There’s not a lot to hate here, but few things are so great that it merits a special recommendation.

Keir Gilchrist (from The United States of Tara) plays Craig, a high school boy who has been feeling increasingly depressed with every day. It’s not like his life is a complete nightmare: his family loves him, he has friends, but he has trouble dealing with the usual teenager pressures. Academics, girls, college looms in the distance, and to him it’s all a bit overwhelming. After contemplating suicide, he decides to check himself in to a psychiatric ward, and lo and behold his life begins to change thanks to new friends such as Bobby (Galifianakis) and Noelle (Emma Roberts). He starts to develop feelings for one of them, but I won’t say who.

The performances across the board are quite good, which makes it all the more difficult to pinpoint what keeps the film from stepping up. Gilchrist certainly has potential to be an interesting leading man, and he shows it here, and I’m convinced Emma Roberts can be a great actress, but she hasn’t been in anything that good yet. (She was in the godforsaken Twelve earlier this year, which about five people saw, me among them.)

But, oh, Zach Galifianakis, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. His performance here is full of so much energy and humanity that at times I feel like I’m watching a different film, mostly a better, darker one. This is without a doubt in my mind his best performances, and were the film around him willing to go to the places he goes we could be talking about an Oscar nomination, if not a win. I kid you not. Even in his more comic scenes there is a sense of hurt in his eyes, a sense that he truly doesn’t believe there ultimately is a point to it all.

Everything else exists in a much happier, easily digested universe. The third act hits every note when you expect it, how you expect it, and without much consequence. Even the most thoroughly mediocre psych-ward movies delve into the depths of the characters’ minds, but here they’re all just a bunch of wacky, crazy people who just want to save enough money for a pizza party. I’m not against a film implying that these institutions work, because for the most part they are not dehumanizing temples of doom rife with Ratched-types, but at least they exist in a world where it isn’t all so easy.

The problems and solutions are all too obvious. The characters, Galifianakis’ excluded, seem to be on an inevitable character track from moment one to the end credits. The film looks good and is acted well, but ultimately there is nothing beneath the surface outside of a few moments and characters. That said, if you end up seeing it you won't NOT like it, and if you call that faint praise you are absolutely, positively right.

Rating:  (out of 4)