Funny Pages

A lot of movies are funny, but very few are funny on a cellular level. Few announce themselves as something different from the very first frames. Even most good comedies are mostly built from familiar situations and people, but Funny Pages is that rare breed; bewildering and strange before its characters even begin speaking and projecting its inherent twistedness with every aspect of its construction.

Funny Pages is a beguiling debut, but it’s also one of the most compelling and unique takes on the coming-of-age genre in years.

What an auspicious debut for Kline and what a fine showcase for all other parties.

It has an unpredictability that keeps you on your toes and a bitter pathos that gives every laugh (of which there are many) a note of tragic despair.

Owen Kline’s script is boisterous, funny, and very much committed to the bit. This is a movie about junior independence, after all, about a slightly full-of-himself young talent who’s journeying out on his own for the first time. So Kline makes sure the journey is memorable.

This lack of generosity toward the supporting players is one of the movie’s major weaknesses. The other is that the episodic story leads to no significant discovery, either narrative or psychological.

Whatever sense of obsession drives Robert’s art and whatever emotional freedom inspires Miles’s, neither is found in the cinematic aesthetic of “Funny Pages”; the movie is merely a conventional vessel for Kline’s ardent ideas, which pass through the cinema without leaving a trace.

If ever there were a film that would leave you scratching your head in bewilderment, this is it. Writer-director Owen Kline’s debut feature is an utterly pointless, aimlessly wandering piece of cinematic crap that serves no purpose and has no redeeming artistic value (which, technically, could qualify it as porn, though, in this case, without the sex). Billed as a comedy (quite a stretch if there ever were one), this coming of age story about an aspiring prodigal underground cartoonist has little to do with coming of age or cartoons. Instead, it runs through an endless list of episodic incidents involving the protagonist and an unhinged mentor, most of which veer off into a series of unrelated, disjointed tangents characterized by voluminous amounts of yelling, violence, property damage, insults and random interactions with quirky supporting players. It seems like the filmmaker is going for some sort of ultra-edgy humor and allegedly insightful sociological statements here, but the wayward route taken to attempt to achieve those supposed objectives amounts to little more than off-putting, unbridled repulsion. Indeed, how this unmitigated garbage got green-lighted is truly beyond me. What’s even more startling, though, are the accolades it has received, including nominations from the Independent Spirit Awards competition and the Cannes Film Festival, as well as a win from the National Board of Review. This is one of those movies that genuinely leaves me wondering “What were they thinking?” when it comes to those who dreamed up the idea for this mess, those who were willing to bankroll it and those who have gone on to lavish it with wholly undeserved praise. By all means, pass this one up – and give it a wide berth at that.