Givré!

Since the 'friends' era (someone was bound to bring it up), Perry's films have always shared the typical romance/comedy element, although I must nuance by saying the emphasis tended to differ, but now it seems that Matt has chosen a different path, trying to prove himself as a serious actor in drama's, although he hasn't fully abjured comedy (not that he should, as long as it remains tasteful). The recent 'The Ron Clark Story' proved to be a big hit in the rose and 'Numb' was the next logical step, providing him with a more challenging and diverse role even namely a screenwriter having to deal with a peculiar form of depression; 'depersonalization'.

Judging the authenticity of his performance is very hard, seeing that I, like most people, have never heard of the condition in question. I do believe most reviews coming from people suffering from it or having suffered from it in the past were predominantly positive. Perry's natural charm and his impression of being clumsy have to be suppressed, and having dealt with depression in real life the actor can dig into his own experience to come up with a real life character, and he does so with furore, wisely underplaying and steering away from his typical comedy style, meanwhile the film still has a lot of off beat comedy moments to lighten the material at hand a bit, certainly a welcome comical relief.

The low-key tone of the film might make it difficult for some people to access, but I would still recommend it to most people.

7.7/10

I saw this at the Austin Film Festival and thought it was one of the best romantic comedies I have seen in years--and from the most unlikely source material. Beautifully written with a light hand, it exploits extreme situations for humor but always goes beyond simple shock value and superficial, quirky tics. (This writer has had enough of movies like Superbad and Knocked Up, which wear audiences out with shock humor, and I didn't see the point of Napolean Dynamite, in which minimalist, oddball moments fail to accrete to a real story.) Numb is instead an eccentric, hilarious film with depth, heart and soul. The tone was spot on: though based on deeply painful autobiographical material, Numb is never maudlin or pathetic. And Matthew Perry is outstanding--prevented from being outlandishly Matthew Perry ("Zero," the director reportedly commanded him. "Nothing. You're numb."), it seemed he was forced to funnel his comic genius into tiny, brilliant moments. A gem of film.

For some reason I ended up watching 3 movies about mental disorder this week. The first was "Helen" starring Ashley Judd which was very powerful but thoroughly depressing. The second was "The Bridge", a documentary showing people jumping to their deaths off the Golden Gate Bridge. Not as morbid as it sounds, but still heavy stuff. And the third was "Numb" which was totally refreshing.

Here we get Matthew Perry's unique brand of humour (charmingly cynical) but much more laid back than you'd expect from his Chandler role on Friends. Here he plays the part of a person who is mature & basically stable yet suddenly hit with an acute case of insanity. In that respect, there's almost a childlike quality to him as he seeks to discover what went wrong. I think that's what makes this so fun to watch, even though the prospect of losing one's mind is inherently depressing.

This is no madcap comedy with witty zingers & one-liners. It's more of a situational-laugh thing. Some of the gags are really subtle, like jokes set up without any punchline (which you must infer). A lot of the gags are based on crazy awkward situations. For example, a psychiatrist starts to lose it in a restaurant, talking in a controlled whisper one minute and then yelling at the busboy to "F OFF!" the next minute for filling her water glass. Lol, no punchline required.

I think this film found the perfect balance between comedy and drama. Too much comedy, and it mocks the subject. Not enough comedy and it gets depressing. "Numb" got it just right. It has both comedy as well as some insightful, dramatic moments.

If you are among the privileged few who have... shall we say... unusual brains (interpretation: total nutcase), or if you know someone who fits the description, you should watch this movie. It'll give you a greater appreciation for the people who have psychological problems as well as those who love them. And it'll do so by giving you some laughs and a smile on your face.

I picked this up on a whim after having only seen a brief trailer for it on another movie. I am SO glad I did. As one of the other commentators pointed out, depersonalization disorder is a real problem for some people. Unlike Perry's character, I smoked weed everyday for a little over two years before it suddenly flipped a 180 on me and threw me into a panic/anxiety disorder coupled with what I was calling dissociation (not feeling right in your own skin, as they say in the movie, is spot-on). I felt "out of pocket" for over two years after my incident and never really went completely back to normal. I eventually managed to get over the chronic anxiety (after six months on Lexapro and about a year spent seeing a psychologist). Anyway, sorry to go on about myself, but it is just such a relief to see this on film! I'm even a writer as well (fiction not screenplays), but this is uncanny. My doctor also told me there was nothing physically wrong with me, just like in the film. I had an MRI and multiple other tests which all yielded nothing, like in the film. I had read some blog entries of people experiencing this, but my doctor had no idea what was wrong with me and my shrink had never really heard of it either. I felt just as alone and helpless as Perry's character does.

This movie did an amazing job of showing the effects of this little-known disorder. That whole part about looking at your hand or an object and not feeling like it's actually there, even though you can physically feel it -- completely true. I wanted to crawl out of my skin at times, and it is just so cathartic to see this film now, years after the fact. Perry is brilliant in this role and didn't even slip into Chandler-esquire tropes that have somewhat become his trademark (although, unfortunately, he will always be compared to that character). The dialog is actually quite good and the romanticism in this film isn't overbearing and contrived like so many other rom-comedies. In fact, I normally avoid rom-comedy for that very reason. Numb avoids the pitfalls and cuts right to the uncontrived truths. It doesn't rely on cuteness or sentimentality and the wittiness shines. Of course it's not perfection, but I couldn't have asked for more. Thank you Harris Goldberg. You did well.

Hudson Milbank, who is a screen writer, gets to knows that he has depersonalization disorder, tries to change his isolated lifestyle and starts to socialize to cure it, and the decisions that Hudson takes, whether as part of the treatment or not is all about the movie.

Having someone who loves and accepts the way that you are without proving or without showing any gimmicks to be attractive is the soul of this movie.

A small movie about accpetance, whether it's good or bad.

Overall it's a good movie which mostly driven by Mathew Perry's performance as Hudson which is the main postive of this film.

It's highly recommended.