Funny People – Movie Review

Written on August 3, 2009 by Marc Eastman in Movies

There’s a joke in Watchmen which Rorschach enters into his journal. It’s an idea that’s been around forever, but it’s summed up well in the quick delivery of a none-too-funny joke. Basically – A man goes to a doctor and complains that he’s depressed. The doctor says the cure is quite simple, because the great clown Pagliacci happens to be in town. Go see him. The man bursts into tears, “but doctor, I am Pagliacci.”

Funny People is basically what happens if you add an in-man to that joke, infuse a bit of the actual story from Pagliacci, and tell it for two and a half hours. What happens when the comedians are depressed, and potentially, what the heck are us non-comedian types supposed to do when the comedians (not to mention the rich and famous who have all that stuff we want) are depressed?

Our story is that of George Simmons, who is in many respects simply Adam Sandler. He’s a comedian who is getting a bit older. He started off doing stand-up, and went on to star in quite a few movies, some of which may have been decent, but there may have been a few things on the goofy side as well. Leave death aside, and where this breaks down as Adam Sandler biopic is for someone else to decide.

As we enter the film, George learns that he has a blood disease, and though we aren’t given a timeline, it seems he doesn’t have long to live. Though the wave of non-happiness which follows such news can hardly be thought of as depression, in George’s case it gets him there, and we suspect that’s because he was getting around to that road anyway. His initial trip through shock and despair lead him to a comedy club where Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) is performing gratis as he tries to climb the comedy ladder.

One thing leads to another, and the two form a curious and cautious friendship by way of George hiring Ira to be his assistant/writer. The story splits between Ira’s time with George, who is discovering just how lonely his life is, and Ira’s time with his younger crowd of various comedy-industry hopefuls. As the strange roads converge, and Ira is never sure where he’s supposed to be, or what he’s supposed to be doing, things are taken up a notch when George decides to get back in contact with the woman he almost married twelve years ago. For a final twist, we then have to ask what happens after you stare at your life through the eyes of someone who has been told he’s going to die… and is then told he isn’t.

There’s a brilliant movie buried somewhere in Funny People, but it ultimately suffers from an unforgivable case of its own point. Focusing on spoiled complacency and the unreality of the overindulged life, Funny People is a movie about soul which has very little of its own. A fairly passionate and powerful story as told by someone who just didn’t have anything else to do that day, and had a lot of money to throw around. It can tell the Pagliacci joke without ruining it completely, but it doesn’t really get it.

The main failing of the movie, and key insight into its lack of self-reflection, is its ludicrously indulgent length. It is long because it heard that more serious films are long, and like the too-rich comedian shopping for a mansion, it figures, “why would you not get more rooms?” But, the problem is not merely a length problem, it is the way in which it is mind-numbingly long combined with the fact that it so glaringly could be trimmed into a 110-minute treasure.

While slightly overdone scenes like George at Thanksgiving are gems, they are thrown in with a plethora of scenes which serve only to spark unending streams of questions that run uncomfortably counter to the film’s development. Sure, they establish the world George travels in, but it isn’t a world that needs establishing, and it certainly doesn’t need hammering home. At some point, you are forced to deny rationale, and conclude that your orator just doesn’t fathom the story he’s telling.

What kind of donkey company would spend $300K to have a comedian do a few minutes at some nonsensical bash they’re throwing, and God knows what amount to have James Taylor perform as well? Wait, what kind of donkey company would expand on the idea by off-handedly top trumps-ing themselves, and laughingly revel in their own fairly grotesque display of wealth without sense? Wait, what kind of donkey company would pay (we assume, but the alternative is worse still) to be portrayed this way in a film? What sort of donkey musical talent (or two) wants to be portrayed as, “Dude/s with price tag?”

It’s sort of fun in its own way, I suppose, but it hardly adds much to our story. We poke at George because he pays a band to jam with him… well, because he’s got that kind of money and no one more meaningful to jam with. It’s sad. We get it. But, the movie throws out cameos by the dozen (Paul Reiser, Ray Romano, Eminem, and on and on)… well, because it’s got that kind of money, and it can say, “Shwing! Look who I got to be in my movie!”

Luckily, the movie has a number of funny moments, and both Sandler and Rogen have the sort of camera-friendly charm that pulls you along without letting things get too bogged down. They both give solid performances, as do Eric Bana and Leslie Mann (but who cares by the time we get to them?). Aubrey Plaza also does well, delivering refreshing bites as Ira’s love interest. None of it manages to matter though, because the story you’re watching gets so lost in a twisted “meta” spiral.

Imagine hearing the Pagliacci joke, but instead of Rorschach telling it, you get Paris Hilton. You’ll certainly be able to work yourself around to the same conclusions, and you’ve got the same moral play… sort of, but it might piss you off a little.

Pagliacci opens with one of its characters telling you that the actors you are about to see (in a sort of play within a play angle) are real people too, and they have real problems just like everyone else. Funny People starts out the same way, but it’s lying.

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