Critic Reviews

An honest and sharply drawn account of the eternal questions of ego, friendship, and sacrifice in the comedy world.

It’s funny and inspiring and harsh and depressing. It’s steeped in existential dread. I don’t know how Birbiglia pulled it off, but he gets the minutiae of an improv-comedy show thrillingly right while using the form to build a kind of allegory of the corrosive effects of capitalism.

Mike Birbiglia's Don't Think Twice stands as the best, most revealing film about comedy people and one of the best about artistic collaboration. It's a boisterous and sensitive work of many facets.

For a movie that involves creating laughs on the fly, the story is tightly told and acted, which adds to its buoyant pacing, astute observations and well-judged poignancy.

A delicately wrought ensemble piece with first-rate turns by Gillian Jacobs, Keegan-Michael Key, and Birbiglia himself, Don't Think Twice scrutinizes its playful setting and finds an ideal entry point for exploring creative desperation.

Birbiglia films what he knows, offering ample and intricate scenes of improvisations performed onstage, along with an insider’s view of the industry.

Don’t Think Twice is an impressive feat on all accounts. For a performer whose greatest virtue is his layered, detailed storytelling, Birbiglia has made a surprisingly impassioned love letter to improv comedy. Like the “yes, and…” art form itself, the movie shoots from the hip, ducks and dives unexpectedly, and excitingly.

Birbiglia, whose previous feature was the well-received “Sleepwalk with Me,” has made a tiny gem, a delightful film as surprising as it is satisfying.

It feels lived it, honest and painfully funny.

So spot-on in its evocation of that whole "scene," onstage and off — its intimacy, competition, struggles and rhythms — that at times it feels like a documentary.