Review of The Comedy (2012) by Ryan C — 16 May 2015

After reading a few of the professional reviews on this site, I watched "The Comedy" more out of curiosity than from any desire to see a great film. I'm glad I did, as I would otherwise have missed out on a unique and beautiful experience. Perhaps because it stars Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, critics and viewers have failed to see the obvious merits of The Comedy - its use of colour and composition, its effective use of close ups, or the deep sadness conveyed by Heidecker throughout all of the apparent mirth - but they are all there, and I think that given enough time, and enough further exposure for director Rick Alverson,.

This movie will get the sort of response it deserves.

Or perhaps not. Most of the professional reviews, at any rate, seem more interested in displaying their moral dissatisfaction with Heidecker's character, or in telling us how tortuous the experience of watching such a character was for them personally, than in actually assessing what is presented. It's not, for most reviewers, a question of whether the personalities and tendencies displayed in the film tell us anything useful about human emotion, whether their experiences provide useful insight into quintessentially 21st century character traits, etc. It's enough that they find such characters distasteful, and that they didn't enjoy themselves a great deal.

Great art has never been about likeable or moral characters. Is Bergman's "Autumn Sonata" an easy watch full of lessons learned? Is any one in Straw Dogs particularly likeable?

I'd hate to see what any of these hacks would have said about Ibsen.

The scene when Swanson parts his father's hair is worth all of the restraint that preceded it.