Funny Ha Ha

I got dragged to see this movie by a friend who knows the director and several of the people in the movie. I guess I didn't have high expectations for it, but it came through nicely. I still don't understand what the title has to do with the movie, I didn't find it really funny, just sweet. I agree that it's a movie not about plot or even characters, but about moments. I kept thinking, "how many times have I been in one of these situations, talking about a relationship or my feelings with someone... how many times have i been on either side of this conversation. I've been this person, and I've been that person too." it was interesting. I really liked it. like I said, it wasn't that funny but it didn't try to be. It was nice to just watch it and soak up the simplicity and not watch some movie that tried to do all of your thinking for you.

An ultra-low budget film about aimless twenty-somethings wasting their lives brings to mind Richard Lindlater's 'Slacker'; and while Andrew Bujalski's film lacks that movie's experimental formlessness, it does share something of the same mood. The cinematography has the feel of a super-eight home movie; but the piece is acutely observed and feels real throughout. Unfortuantly, it's just not that interesting, in part because its characters just aren't that interesting, and in a sense this isn't accidental; their directionless existence owes much to the fact that they simply haven't lived enough to have anything to care about, anything to say. And while there should be a profound sadness underpinning this, and some sociological analysis, the film never seems to scrape below its surface of whiny, unhappy people. You wouldn't dislike these people in real life, but if they have any notable attributes, they're not on display, and you wouldn't go out of your way to spend time in their company. But what's true of the characters is sadly also true of the film that contains them.

Looking like a documentary, this movie captures well life at the age of the characters, that I remember when I was that age: direction-less and insecure. The problem is, a glimpse into people's personal lives aren't necessarily interesting, and I wanted more to happen or for the story to be more interesting. I also wondered why characters we saw a lot of in the beginning of the movie, simply disappeared with no explanation. Alex's unexpected marriage was never explained, nor did Marnie seem to try to find out how this marriage came about. In keeping with the theme of a segment of someone's life snipped out randomly and put on film, the ending provided no resolution to anything, but I felt it could have been less abrupt and arbitrary.

This seemed to be just the kind of movie I enjoy, but turned out to be a shell of the same.

The director gets some things right, like his choice of star and some of the scene pacing. Dialog and character interactions breathe properly; they're languid and yet vaporous, as some other reviewers have said.

Too bad they all come to nothing. Marnie's a vacuous amalgam, not a character; she's the camera, not a human being. Encounters and relationships don't build through sequence or consequence; almost nothing happens that informs or affects a subsequent scene. Through her, we see the other characters, who are almost universally portrayed by much lesser actors. There's no character arc; the script feels self-indulgent and ultimately trivial. The entire movie is Marnie amused, Marnie bemused, Marnie bored... audience bored.

Bujalski had the pieces to make a remarkable film, but instead he never got the transmission out of neutral.

Sitting through this movie is just like the tedium of actually trying to find a date in Boston. This movie, much like most of the city of Boston is populated by men who can't find a date and the women who don't want to date them. So OK, the director basically held a mirror up to my early 20's when I was that underemployed guy sleeping on the floor on a foam pad with my girlfriend in that little Queensbury Street studio apartment. So OK it really is not a very forgiving city when you're single and lonely. Unfortunately in this film there is no real story worth caring about. Some shallow people do shallow things hoping no one notices how shallow they are by punctuating every movement with witty pseudo-intellectualism. Again, just like living in Boston. So for that I applaud the director. He really captured the Hub at its grittiest. That and the film is so refreshingly free of production values. It's like looking at old home movies of people you once cared about but have since outgrown.