The first thing I did when I started putting together a review for this film was to go to Wikipedia and look up an exact definition of one of its many overused tropes. Trusty Wikipedia didn’t disappoint, and it’s to the entry for the “manic pixie dream girl” that I turn to describe the teenage romance that we’re presented with here. Wikipedia states, “Manic pixie dream girl (MPDG) is a stock character in films. Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown, describes the MPDG as ‘that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.’” It goes on say that, “MPDGs are usually static characters who have eccentric personality quirks and are unabashedly girlish. They invariably serve as the romantic interest for a (often brooding or depressed) leading male protagonist. A prime example is Natalie Portman’s character in the movie Garden State, written and directed by Zach Braff. MPDGs are also called ‘Amazing Girls’ by Sadie Stein of Jezebel.com, describing the type as ‘ideal muses whose beauty, sweetness, and gentle, studied eccentricity renders them entirely docile.’” It’s Kind of a Funny Story is the story of a depressed teenager named Craig (Keir Gilchrist) who checks himself in to the mental ward of a hospital after suicidal thoughts and ends up going through a life changing experience thanks to interactions with both an eccentric older brother type named Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) and a cute, petite, artistic, young girl with scars on her arms named Noelle (Emma Roberts) who are also patients of the institute. You know, because mental wards are always chock full of cute young girls.
My excitement level for seeing this film was high for three reasons that sort of all came together for a perfect storm of anticipation. The trailer for the movie clued me in on each. First, it sold this as a quirky, independent film that played a bit outside of mainstream Hollywood’s sensibilities. Then it heavily featured Galifianakis. And lastly, it informed me that this movie was from the same writing/directing team that made Half Nelson and Sugar, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. Okay, the indie thing, that could go either way. If this was merely a case of the film having a faux, manufactured indie aesthetic in order to sell it to a certain audience, much like say Juno, then it could be a very bad thing. But if it was indie in the sense that it dealt with characters more complex and stories more controversial than the ones Hollywood churns out over and over again, then it could be a very good thing. The inclusion of Boden and Fleck in the credits assured me that it would be the latter. I’ve enjoyed their work quite a bit up to this point, especially Half Nelson, in which Ryan Gosling played a drug addicted inner city schoolteacher. That film was very raw and real. It tightly focused on one character and told his story without getting bogged down in any of the sentimentality inherent in the genre. It’s camera work was very handheld, immediate, and low budget, but without ever feeling intrusive or sloppy. That film basically took an overused Holllywood cliché, that of the white person tasked with getting through to and inspiring poor, ethnic students, and presented it with enough of a new spin that it felt completely fresh. Their involvement assured me that they could take a similar overused plotline here, that of the brooding young outsider finding happiness through teenage romance, and find a way to show it from a new enough perspective to elevate the material to something unique. Galifianakis is a performer that I’ve really enjoyed for quite a while and who has recently found mainstream success after his breakthrough role as “the crazy guy” in The Hangover. I really like him in these mainstream roles, and I think he injects them with enough of his own sensibilities to carve out a niche as being better and more interesting than the other guys who are currently getting cast in the “crazy guy” role, but I’m also interested in seeing him continue with some of the more experimental, theater of the mind type stuff inherent in his standup work. This looked like it might be a perfect vehicle to do both. Here he plays the crazy guy, sure, but rather than just playing it for laughs, he’s legitimately playing a man who has mental illness. The role seemed ripe with potential for mixing some of that comedy that has made him hugely famous with some more weighty dramatic work, and perhaps a dark edge that mainstream audiences wouldn’t be quite comfortable handling. Given these three factors working together, I felt pretty confident that this was going to be a film that I would love, but unfortunately it managed to disappoint me on almost every level.
The protagonist, Craig, is a likable enough young man portrayed by a capable enough young actor. I hadn’t seen Gilchrist in anything prior to this, but he’s clearly capable of shouldering the work of helming a teen rom/com. And the character of Craig works as the introspective young kid who you hope will figure out his place in the world and end up happy. Everything that he’s supposed to do, he does. The problem I had with his character, and the film as a whole, is that it didn’t offer me any surprises. This is a straight up, bare bones, teen movie straight out of the Hollywood system. None of that complexity and controversy that I was hoping for is anywhere to be found. When we meet Craig he is in existential, suicidal, crisis mode. The root of this seems to be a combination of the fact that his father (Jim Gaffigan) is putting a lot of pressure on him to get into a prestigious summer school program and the girl that he likes (Zoe Kravitz) is dating his best friend (Thomas Mann) instead of him. Not exactly end of the world problems, and not exactly the kind of deep thinking that I wanted from my oh-so gritty and indie follow up to Sugar. It’s the kid’s narcissism that gets him into the predicament of the film. After begging his doctor to give him more serious treatment than further observation and therapy sessions due to immediate “suicidal” tendencies, he is committed into the hospitals adult psych ward (it’s explained to us that the minors are in with the adults due to renovations). When faced with people with actual mental illness rather than brooding, teenage ennui, Craig pretty quickly goes from naval gazing into over his head panic mode. Maybe this very real place for people with very serious problems isn’t where he belongs. Gilchrist conveys the gravity of the situation well, and at that early point in the film I was into it and feeling the tension of his situation. And then all of the crazy people go from serious and disturbed in one hallway-walking scene to being wacky cartoon characters for the rest of the film. And our protagonist’s own mental illness is revealed as pretty innocuous anxiety that takes on the form of “stress vomiting” rather than continued suicidal thoughts. The stress vomiting is treated as a running gag, and it’s a good one. Every time Craig unexpectedly goes blargh! the crowd I saw this with erupted in horror/delight. But what of the fact that this film opened with the kid wanting to kill himself? What happened to the very real stakes that were introduced early on and them forgotten in favor of sight gags and jokey dialogue? Any potential this story had to be something substantial was thrown out the window in preference of a very cookie-cutter romance.
So enter the girl. Noelle is first introduced as existing in the background of the film, smirking at everything that Craig says, letting us know that she is inexplicably drawn to him despite the fact that he is so apparently unspectacular in every way. Her introduction marks the transition of the story into the realm of pure escapism. Why does this girl like Craig? Because that’s what the girl in these movies does. Why is she in this mental ward? Because that’s where the plot needs her to show up. Never is any attempt made to explain who she is, how she got here, or why she makes the choices she does. She is a stock character, the love interest, the manic pixie dream girl: a character so overdone that there are websites cataloguing how many films she has shown up in. Noelle has scars on her wrists; apparently she has gone a step further than Craig, from thinking about suicide to actually attempting it. That’s some pretty heady stuff, and you’d think that a lot of her characterization would revolve around exploring that act and how she came to it. But there is no characterization here. There’s no evidence of her illness or depression in her words or actions. As she is presented to us in the film she is spunky, fun, and completely mentally healthy. Her scars are shown to us once to explain away why she is in the hospital and then they are completely forgotten. The result isn’t just disappointing; it’s insulting. The people in charge of this script seemed to think that a mental ward would be an interesting place to set a romantic comedy and then gave little to no thought about what the reality of that situation would be afterwards. It’s Kind of a Funny Story doesn’t just have a light take on mental illness; it has no take on it whatsoever. Well, almost.
The bright spot of the film, for me, was the character of Bobby and how Galifianakis brought him to life. Bobby is the one character who is shown struggling. He is the one character who is allowed to break down, the one who is able to fail. He is the only one who isn’t given a ridiculous happy ending. His illness is portrayed as an actual problem keeping him from living a happy or normal life, and not just a quirk. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a spectacularly memorable role, it’s not Oscar material. But it’s the only bit of substance in a puff piece of a film, and Galifianakis lends enough weight and sadness to the role with his tired eyes and beardy emoting to excite me about the possibility of him getting more dramatic work in the future. And he’s funny too, that shouldn’t be overlooked. This film is a comedy mostly, and most of those laughs come from an unhinged Bobby acting frankly and inappropriately around a teenage kid. Whether he’s dressing up as a doctor, playing table tennis with the comatose, or pretending to be a teenage girl, he knocks the jokes out of the park, and that should come as a surprise to no one at this point.
If the other characters were written with the same gravity and complexity that Bobby was, this would have been an easy recommendation. As is, I was just left scratching my head at how this super saccharine collection of clichés could have come from the same people who made a film as dark and interesting as Half Nelson. The advertisements sold this as a quirky, off the beaten path love story between two mental patients, but what it ended up being is just the same love story between two teenage archetypes that you’ve seen a million times before. It’s kind of interesting to look at. I’ve seen movies that were kind of fringe be falsely advertised as being more mainstream than they are before, but this is the first time that I’ve ever seen a really crowd pleasing, easily digestible story falsely advertised as something dark and left of center. What is the strategy behind that? What did the filmmakers and the people footing the bill want this to be? I don’t think it’s much of a crime to give away the predictable ending, where the main character monologues at us about how we need to learn to just enjoy our lives for all of the good stuff in them as we’re shown images of him being with his family, gallivanting around New York city, and kissing his newly won model-pretty girlfriend. Yeah, that’s a great point, as long as you have a loving family, a beautiful girl to make out with, live in one of the greatest cities on the planet, and don’t actually have any real chemical imbalances or mental illness to speak of. What if you’re homeless, alone, schizophrenic, and have no chance of ever being involved in a serious romantic relationship because of it? You know, like the people who really get put in mental wards. This film reaches too far with its mental hospital setting and makes itself look stupid in the process. The two kids who we meet had no business being in that hospital and this story being played out in that setting is a stretch at best, and insensitive at worst. This same story could have been set anywhere and not had to deal with the expectations of presenting characters that have mental illnesses. This whole thing would have been exactly the same if it was set in a high school and Bobby was the wacky janitor that Craig went to for advice about girls. You can’t just introduce characters that have recently tried to kill themselves and then refuse to deal with the ramifications of it by writing them as nothing more than typical, happy teenagers. It’s lazy and stupid. This movie isn’t One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, it’s wannabe The Breakfast Club at best. And never is that more apparent than in a scene where Craig and Noelle break out of the mental ward and go running around through the halls of the hospital. It was clear homage to the hall-roaming scene in that John Hughes high school classic, but the scene works much better in The Breakfast Club because that is a tonally light film that delves into darker subject matter. The brief suicide and depression talk in that film adds it unexpected depth and the scenes of the characters running around the hallways offer a welcome respite from those bits of serious talk. Here we start off tonally dark, we are drowning in depression and suicide, and then we get a musical montage scene that is shooting for sweet and fun, but ends up coming off as Scooby-Doo ridiculous due to the constant tonal shifts.
It's Kind of a Funny Story
