Funny Bones

How did I never hear of Lee Evans before I saw this movie? He is my new idol. When this movie came out, I gave it a miss because of Jerry Lewis (King of Comedy notwithstanding -- he gives me the creeps, man), but I caught it on Sundance the other night and was bowled over. It starts out sorta weird, but then hooks you with the story of this guy trying to be a standup comic in the shadow of his showbiz-legend dad (is there any worse word than "showbiz"? Maybe "node," but other than that, "showbiz" is just such a bad word!!!), and then all of a sudden you are in Blackpool, England, being treated to (a) some amazing vaudeville performers from an era sadly gone by, and (b) some amazing performances by clowny guys (not the creepy kind), and (c) Leslie Caron singing a torch song in a man-tailored shirt, and (d) a beautiful story of lost dreams, redemption, and wax eggs. Rent it, fool. Rent it now if you have a funny bone in your body.

This film is a very underrated gem - it cant be put into a nice little box like Hollywood always wants to do with projects. "This is a wacky comedy" "This is a dark family drama", etc. You could tell they did not know how to market the film when it first came out in the US. They made it look like a wacky farce which it is not. This film works as a dark comedy about talent, those that have it and those that dont and yes, Jerry lewis gives a strong performance (right up there with King Of Comedy)and Lee Evans is a marvel as a talented comedian and Oliver Platt gives one ofhis best performances as an untalented offspring of a legend. Worth seeing - just dont expect slapstick, expect three-dimensional flawed people trying to make peace with one another and get through their torn lives.

Not really a comedy - more a surreal, sometimes weirdly comic piece about comedians, about families, about the awfulness of having a famous father, about genius, about the problem of what makes a comic funny, about the sublime sadness of failure. Lee Evans is absolutely haunting as the tortured comic genius, the natural comic who is so purely a comedian that he can barely communicate except in gags, yet who will never be allowed to perform in public because of his dark past. Leslie Caron is heart-rending as his mother, a brave, faded French beauty stranded for ever singing mildly risque songs in Blackpool pubs, and their tender scenes together are for me the best thing in the whole film.

The whole cast is incredible...right down to Oliver Reed camping it up gloriously in a bizarre sub-plot which at first I thought might be part of the Evans' character's fevered imagination. It is a movie absolutely crammed with magic but in one of my favourite scenes, Oliver Platt arrives in Blackpool and instantly sees it peopled with characters from Donald McGill postcards - fat ladies, saucy girls with flouncy skirts, burly men. The ending is a bit wonky and looks to my eye to have been changed from a tragic one to a "happy" one to please audiences. In the two opening sequences, both Evans and Platt utter the words "I'm going to die" in very different circumstances, and mean very different things, and other variations on the theme of death and laughter follow - all this seemed to be pointing down a much darker alleyway than the one we got. Doesn't matter, though. Still a great movie.

Funny Bones is not a traditional comedy. It starts off being deliberately unamusing, yet it later becomes evident that this was done not only to establish reason for the events that occur during the rest of the movie, but also to create good character development. Oliver Platt proves that he is not only a great comedic actor, but he can be just as good when he is trying NOT to be funny. His on-stage scenes early in the film were not only well-lit but also wonderfully acted and photographed. Jerry Lewis also performs a surprisingly convincing role in a startling turn from sheer comedic hilarity to a seriously dramatic role as Platt's legendary comedian father.

Platt plays Tommy Fawkes, a struggling stand-up comedian trying to live up to the legacy that his famous father George Fawkes (Jerry Lewis) has created. George is now retired, and Tommy is struggling to get his career started. After yet another painful failure onstage, Tommy decides to travel back to Blackpool, England, where his family's comedy originated. The people that Tommy meets there are strangely fascinating, and Lee Evans delivers a particularly interesting performance as Jack Parker, the high energy comedian who is on the run from the law and is also George Fawkes' bastard son. His one full length comedy act is absolutely amazing to watch.

As Tommy is holding auditions trying to find something funny to include in his own act back in the States, he learns more and more about the people living in Blackpool and about their history as well as some dishonorable actions of his own father, and he learns an important lesson from it all. He ultimately finds his place in the world of live acting, and the transformation from who he was at the beginning of the film to who he is at the end is incredible.

Funny Bones is an excellent but very different comedy that is ultimately very rewarding and satisfying. The cinematic trickery and the skillful use of lighting add to the experience, and the acting is excellent all around. The circus scene at the end of the film was great, it was tense and amazingly well done. Although slow at times, this is a great film about overcoming obstacles and developing your own view of the world, as well as the importance of finding your rightful place in it.

I do have to say from the outset that I really like this film, disjointed though it is, perhaps because it is so different. This is a story of a broken family and hidden secrets - Tommy Fawkes goes to Blackpool, once one of the world's showbiz capitals, to learn how to be funny; once there he finds a duo (played by veteran British comics Freddie Davies and George Carl) who he thinks have stolen his famous dad's act - but are things really as they seem? Jack Parker is a Blackpool born lad with the innate ability to be creatively humorous (Lee Evans is excellent in this role) while lacking in the social skills to survive in the real world.

Against this backdrop is something about mysterious eggs which hold some mystical secret or other (giving Oliver Reed yet another strange role as the oddball Dolly). The really interesting aspects of the story are the skeletons in the closet that bring Jack's mother (Leslie Caron) and Tommy's father (Jerry Lewis) together again. The strongest scenes though are the ones which truly shock - the flashback outlining the tragedy that has affected Jack's life, and the final few sequences in the show arena.

'Funny Bones' may be hard to fathom but I think it repays attention by giving its audience something a bit unexpected - plus some great performances along the way.