It's A Kind Of Funny Story (2010)

(L-R) Zach Galifianakis and Keir Gilchrist

Watch the It's A Kind Of Funny Story trailer

Writer: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck (screenplay), Ned Vizzini (novel)

Director: Anna Boen, Ryan Fleck

Notable Actors: Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis

I was expecting, I’ll be honest, fuck all from this. The worst of every world – teen drama making fun of the serious business drama some teens have to deal with, some dude from The Hangover (not redeemed in any sense by being in the enjoyable Due Date, just to say), and Emma Roberts. That girl is one of a handful of banes of my life which include Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez, Miranda Cosgrove etcetera etcetera.

Course there’s also Amanda Bynes, official she-devil.

Truthfully I went to see this because I’d had a row and needed to stay out of the house. It was raining. It was cold. It was an hour til Conviction started. So what did I find? Predictability, both in plot and stereotypes? Boredom rejoiced with rolled eyes and a wonder why I didn’t enter the hour-into-it Potter 7A for the third time? Well, yes. But no too.

What Funny Story really has going for it is it’s direction. The rest? Emma Roberts is surprisingly good, until you realise there’s no reality to the role, and it's the part that holds your interest, not her interpretation of it. Zach Galifianakis is surprisingly average rather than completely unbearable, and Keir Gilchrist is possibly a talent to watch. Possibly.

But the direction, man. Take a paint-by-numbers-hipster-shit frame and alter it completely in strange little perfect sections which reveal how good a film this could have been if the primary aim wasn’t the teen market who act like pre-teens, rather than the teen market who laugh at how pathetically boring Skins parties are.

It’s strange, really. This film gave me everything I want in terms of altering irritating cinematic clichés (with the exception of EMOTIONAL MUSIC), yet it was nothing more than pleasant. It didn’t send me into the rage such subjected content often does (you should have heard child-me rage about Jacqueline Wilson).

I think – and I have no idea if this is true – that the differences is because, for once, perhaps the people behind this weren’t carbon copies of the target audience. Perhaps they, at least as teens, were more like I was. Perhaps they have to hide the truth behind the quirky-comedic-but-serious-business hipster genre.

Whatever the story is, the film is adequate. Considering I expected an utter shitstorm, this roughly translates that I enjoyed it, my surprise at this egging on this experience. Yeah, it’s throw-away-and-forget-about-it, but it’s one of the better ones out there.

P.S. Americans - Craig isn't spelt Creg. Maybe learn from that?