No Laughing Matter

Posted August 23rd, 2009 by

No laughing matter

Is it possible to make a movie about comedians that’s actually funny? Judd Apatow’s latest sets itself a challenge, says John Patterson

Movies about stand-up comedians are like movies about painters. There’s always a scene in middlebrow, art-drunk flicks where we get to witness the artist actually making their art, wherein the painter flails wildly at the canvas with brush and oils, striving to convey the appropriate sense of transcendent creative ecstasy. And on the easel there always sits the utterly unconvincing proof of his or her greatness, particularly if the artist in question is fictional (ie with nothing that can be pulled off a gallery wall to prove their brilliance). To underscore and legitimise our paint-flinger’s genius, we usually have to await the arrival of some big-noise critic, like Jeffrey Tambor’s Clem Greenberg in Pollock, to announce, “By god, Pollock, I think you’ve finally cracked it!”

Same thing in Judd Apatow’s intermittently very funny but ungainly and overlong Funny People (how many Woody Allen movies run to 146 minutes?). It doesn’t matter that stand-ups Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen work real comedy club crowds because the moment they start doing whatever it is they do, it feels totally unconvincing, like Sally Field and Tom Hanks in Punchline (my scars from that one have yet to heal two decades on). And the other big stand-up movie of note, Bob Fosse’s bottomlessly grim Lenny, with ODs, borderline OCD, and lots of sobbing, isn’t my definition of a laugh-riot, either.

So in Funny People, they go the sidekick-validation route: every time Sandler or Rogen cracks wise, there’s little doughboy Jonah Hill to vouchsafe (ad nauseam), “That’s funny!” If you need a stooge following you around saying you’re the King of Yucks, count on it, you’re not funny people at all.

Putting the word “funny” or “comedy”, or “laugh” in your title is like giving one giant hostage to fortune; by simple elevation of expectation, you court certain death for The Funny. There ought to be a law against it, or perhaps just a stupidly folklorish superstition militating against the practice, like actors quailing cravenly at the mention of “Macbeth.”

Try me. Take the test. Funny Girl? Funny Lady? Not funny. Something Funny Happened On The Way To The Forum? No, it didn’t – the only funny thing that happened was they let Dick Lester direct it. Funny Games? I don’t think so. And with an Austrian director, to boot? Nein! Funny Bones? Well, that one is quite funny, which is an achievement because Jerry Lewis is in it. Funny Farm? Funny Money? How can they possibly be funny? Chevy Chase is in both of them. Something Smells Funny? Yes, Tom Green, that’s your dead career stinking up the place. The King of Comedy? (Best Joke: “I wanna show you a picture of my Pride and Joy …”) No, it’s a laff-free wilderness of wincing discomfort and anxiety, plus Sandra Bernhard’s many, many teeth.

And Jerry Lewis has the straight role.

Quit trying so hard. Don’t tell us upfront about The Funny; surprise us. You’ll find maybe we aren’t such a tough crowd, after all.

John Patterson

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