Review of She's Funny That Way (2015) by Stel P — 21 Apr 2015

The first Peter Bogdanovich film I've seen, "She's Funny That Way", titled "Broadway Therapy" here in France, is an amusing, sometimes laugh-out-loud romantic comedy that feels a bit like a Woody Allen movie with lots of tongue-in-cheek references to other films, fast-paced dialogue, and numerous ridiculous twists.

Set in New York, it stars Imogen Poots as an escort, Izzy, who is hired by Broadway director Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson), who allows her to kickstart her acting career by paying her $30,000. The next day he shows her out, saying he's leaving town, but unbeknownst to both of them it won't be the last time they see each other. The next day she auditions for the part of a call girl in Arnold's play, and everything starts going wrong.

The film throughs a bunch of exciting characters at us, all of whom have some connection to either Arnold or Izzy. First, there's his wife Delta (Kathryn Hahn), the lead actress in his play who has no idea he has a fetish for paying prostitutes large sums of money so they can quit their work and chase their dreams, and there's Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), an actor in their play who's in love with Delta AND knows about Arnold's secret. Then there's the playwright Joshua (Will Forte), and his angry therapist girlfriend played by Jennifer Aniston who so happens to be Izzy's therapist as well. On top of that, one of her clients, a judge played by Austin Pendleton, is stalking Izzy using a private detective (George Morfogen) to try and get another night with her even after she's quit escorting.

All of these character intersections can be exhausting to follow, but each performance is excellent enough to keep it tolerable. Poots, though doing a Brooklyn accent that's a tad over-the-top, is the best-in-show, totally carrying the ridiculousness of it all. Hahn also steals scenes as Arnold's wife.

As far as the filmmaking goes there's nothing too groundbreaking, though there are some nice incidental shots where we see characters enter the same room without knowing another character is also there. The editing is a bit off in places and could've used a little more patching up, but the cinematography is smooth and solid and it's as a whole a nice looking and well-organized comedy, though by the end the randomness of some events, and a ton of forced twists, keep it from being as great as the first half an hour or so make it seem like it could be.