Review of It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010) by Hector T — 28 Jun 2011

I was somewhat skeptical of this film initially, as my only experience with the Ryan Fleck/Anna Boden directorial team was the so-called masterpiece Half-Nelson. The film was a critical darling, yet although it is far from my least favorite movie of all time, it nevertheless ranks quite highly on my list as one of the most boring.

Ever.

Like, seriously. Watching that pathetic excuse for an Indie film is about as exciting as listening to Kings of Leon try to play entertaining music. Ryan Gosling says the word "dialectics" in class, and he does crack, and the film "observes" just how fucking damaged he is. So what did the filmmakers see in this material that I did not? To quote my favorite Gosling line from the film, "I don't know!!!!! I don't know!!!!!!".

But I'm happy to report that two films later (I never saw Sugar) the team managed to make a pretty solid film. There are a few moments when the formula that drives the plot sticks out a little too much (the usual sitcom cliche of one character seeing exactly what they shouldn't see at exactly the wrong moment rears its banal, ugly head here) but the story has a lot of feeling behind it, the dramatization is able to match the feeling, and Zack Galifianakis is actually perfectly cast--a minor miracle in of itself. The film's biggest accomplishment? The filmmakers weave the usual coming of age story with the drama of the patients with mental disorders in a way that is credible and honest, that is sincere and sweet and yet, mostly, is not full of saccharine bullshit.

Aside from a few overly predictable moments and a scene involving Queen/David Bowie's Under Pressure that is both too obvious and yet not obvious enough, It's Kind of a Funny Story is a very solid film. I have no idea why Flixster is telling me that Diary of a Wimpy Kid qualifies as a film that is like this one. Maybe one of the deleted scenes of Wimpy Kid featured Greg and Rowley's teacher dropping acid and telling them that society sucks bad. I can only wish.