It's a common path in Hollywood now. A first-time director rises out of nowhere with a rapturously received independent film. It rides a wave of hype, buzz, and positive reviews to some degree of mainstream award recognition. After this breakthrough, the director is suddenly fighting off offers from big studios and usually handle a prominent project of some sort. (Increasingly, it's a superhero movie but we'll get to that later...) After swinging back even further to their indie roots with “Sugar,” Anne Boden and Ryan Fleck would have their studio breakthrough with their third feature. “It's Kind of a Funny Story” was still technically an indie project, though it was based off a successful novel and distributed by a major studio, still qualifying as the directing duo's most high-profile project to this point.
Craig Gilner is sixteen years old and under a lot of stress. His dad is pressuring him to get into a prodigious school and he hasn't even started studying yet. His crush and his best friend are dating, actively flirting around him all the time. Among this mounting anxiety, Craig has started contemplating killing himself. Frightened by his own thoughts, he checks himself into a mental hospital. The terms of admittance says he has to stay throughout the week, even if Craig is immediately ready to change his mind. Over the next five days, he makes new friends and realizes some things about himself.
In the world of independent movies, there's a certain “type” movie fans can immediately recognize. They are comedy, frequently coming-of-age stories. They have a medium sized cast with lots of flashy supporting roles, revolving around a young protagonist trying to come out of his or her shell. These supporting characters are often excessively quirky, bringing lots of eccentric dialogue and wacky events with them. I call these the “indie quirk-fests.” They get scooped up by the studios from film festivals all the time, because occasionally a “Juno” or a “Little Miss Sunshine” will break through and become a big hit. Let me tell you, “It's Kind of a Funny Story” is one-hundred percent typical of this strain of cinema.
Yes, “It's Kind of a Funny Story” features a socially awkward teen hero, a manic pixie dream girl that changes his life forever, and a well-known comedian in a wise if highly eccentric mentor role. Yet this kind of story is told in the world of mental health. Our hero is deeply anxious, struggling with suicidal feelings and feelings of inadequacy. His hero has tried to kill himself multiple times before. The wacky comic relief characters in the background are suffering from serious mental maladies. Is it just me or is setting such a typical quirky comedy story in this kind of setting... Sort of trivializing mental illness? I'm sure Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck wouldn't see it that way. But as someone who has struggled with anxiety, depression, OCD, and intrusive thoughts, I really don't appreciate the portrayals here.Having said all that, Craig is not the worst protagonist I've seen in movies like this. The kid isn't annoying. In fact, I even found myself relating to him a few times. Much like Miguel Soto in “Sugar,” Craig is something of a perfectionist. He wants to please his parents but, mostly, he will be disappointed in himself he can't get into this nice school. Yet this desire to be the best goes hand-in-hand with a fear of failing spectacularly. That fear is so overwhelming that he never tries and his anxiety becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is a cycle of self-defeating perfectionism that I have gone through – still fight with, really – all the time. And “It's Kind of a Funny Story” earns points for depicting it fairly accurately.
If “It's Kind of a Funny Story” had simply focused on portraying this frantic mindset, I might have been a little more forgiving of it.(Even if it continues to play deeply sick people as figures of dehumanizingly quirky amusement... However, like so many indie quirk-fest, the film also has to be a love story. About entering the mental hospital, Craig means Noelle. The film hints at her backstory – we briefly see scars on her wrists – but we learn very little about her inner life. She is interested in Craig for loosely defined reasons, seemingly motivated to befriend him based on his kindness to another patient. And that's the basis of their entire relationship. You know why he falls in love with her. Craig's an awkward nerd and she's a hot girl paying attention to him. But why the hell does Noelle care about him? I might have an answer if the film bothered to develop her beyond the bare facts.
To prove how cute, how overwhelmingly twee it is, “It's Kind of a Funny” story heads off on extended flights of fancy throughout its run time. The most gratuitous of these moments concerns Craig participating in music therapy. He gets talked into singing. Instead of showing him awkwardly mumbling his way through a song, what might've been a moment of honest exposure that strips away the bullshit, we get an elaborate fantasy sequence. We see Craig and his friends as glamorously rock stars belting out “Under Pressure.” This is far from the only time the film does this. Craig's voice over narration is often smarmy, often too cute for its own. His declaration of love with Noelle occurs before the city skyland turns into an animated postcard.
Occasionally, however, the film's digressions are mildly likable. During art therapy, Craig starts to draw maps. The film then leaps into that illustration, transitioning back through the past via a fly through an animated city. That was pretty cool shot. Occasionally, I do like some of Craig's extended fantasy spots. Such as one that sees him rising up through school and to the White House, with a stopover at MTV Cribs first. That follows a line of logic I can relate too. Generally speaking, these elements are too overdone, not genuine enough, for my taste.
Gilchrist, of course, has no box office clout. The star attractions in the film were Zach Galifianakis, still running high off “The Hangover” movies at the time, and Emma Roberts, who Hollywood was still trying to make happen at the time. Galifianakis plays Bobby, the mentally ill mentor. Galifianakis' wackier touches as a comedy – which includes sneaking Craig out to play basketball here – have always had an undercurrent of sadness, of frailty, and that is put to good use here. Roberts, meanwhile, does have a certain likable energy about her. She brings an attitude to Noelle that makes the audience want to learn more about her, even if the script respond to that desire.
There's a number of other familiar faces in the cast. Craig's parents are played by Lauren Graham and Jim Gaffigan. It is disappointing that such familiar, likable presence are stuck in such minor roles. It's odd that Gaffigan, the very idea of a lovable oaf of a parent, is cast as a more strict father figure. Graham is cast too type as a warm and supportive mom, the film putting her in far too few scenes. Also wasted is Viola Davis as the doctor monitoring Craig's case. She's brought in to squint at Gilchrist a few times, deliver a line of wisdom, and then it's off to the next scene. I don't know why familiar faces and talented performers were shoved into nothing roles like this.
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