I Used to Be Funny

I found the description of this movie to be deceptive. The story is about a former comedian where something happened that derailed her life.

The description says PSTD but what this trauma event is it not immediately revealed. The movie spends the three quarters of the time dancing around something having happened.

The dialog tries to be hip about teenage topics but it is mostly just cringe. No cap.

Much of the story is told as flash backs interweaved into the present so such it's never really clear when anything is occurring until several beats into a scene. I found this all irritating and bad story telling.

The movie eludes to what may have happened and while it's possible to guess, it's makes it all the worse that they don't just say it.

Everyone in the movie knows what happened but we are left out of being shared the details. Conversations about the event happen over and over to the point of becoming fraying, like an inside joke that no one will explain to you until you start to wonder if the pay off will be worth it.

It won't.

This fake tension is bad story telling. There is a missing child and the description creates a narrative that this is a big part of the movie but it's simply not. Our main character spends most of the movie unconcerned about the child's whereabouts. Its only purpose is to provide an ending to an otherwise meandering mess of a movie.

Comedy is inherent in calling on personal experiences for a joke. Humor is a defense mechanism and a willing tool to break the ice and even recover. Comedy is healing and is used significantly in the film I Used To Be Funny. In a somewhat dark comedy set against the backdrop of the #MeToo era, the film stars Rachel Sennott as a struggling comic battling PTSD who takes part in a search for a missing girl she used to nanny. The film tackles heavy subject matter with airy deftness, and what ties it together is Sennott's arresting performance. In an edgy and humorous film, I Used To Be Funny takes center stage as one of the year's best.

Full review @ Geek Vibes Network.

IUTBF is a tough movie to love. I guess you would have to live in the disillusioned LA Gen Z bubble to understand any of the characters or their motivations. Cinema is best defined as an empathy creating machine but this movie made me feel nothing.

The issue is mostly the awkward, stilted conversations in the screenplay. The opaque plot doesn't help. The flashback scenes provide some drama but also make the whole film seem like a Greek tragedy.

The direction is actually fairly effective, the acting, however, is not. Some of the characters will be grating to a 'normal' audience. Hence the need for the bubble.

I never thought that a movie about a stand up comic could be so laugh free.

I think the movie 'Funny People' gave me PTSD for movies about comedians. I didn't enjoy that movie much at all and I think I was worried I was going to have a similar experience with 'I Used to be Funny'. That couldn't have been further from the case though. I was glued to the screen for every minute of this film.

Rachel Sennott has been one of the most interesting actresses to watch in recent years, but this film gave her the chance to prove she can truly act in a dramatic role. And she killed it. Also I had never heard of Caleb Hearon until this week and yet now I've seen him steal the show in two films. He has a lot of charm that man.

This is a heavy film. It's gritty and raw and quite devastating at times. I loved the structure of the film, with the intersecting timelines and the mystery around what exactly happened. I will say you have to have your wits about you at times to keep on track of which timeline you are actually in.

I really enjoyed this film. I'm quite surprised to be honest to see it with only a 6.3/10 on IMDb. I feel like I must've seen something in it that others didn't. I highly recommend this one though. 9/10.

I USED TO BE FUNNY is an above-average mumblecore offering starring Rachel Sennott. Considering how quickly Rachel Sennott has blown up since the confusingly popular BOTTOMS has come out, it almost feels like she owed someone a favor doing this movie. While the movie mostly feels marketed as a comedy, the film itself primarily exists in the realm of heavy-handed drama, and when they do try to infuse comedy, it rarely lands. While the plot is pretty unique and ambitious for this kind of film, it also somehow felt a bit misdirected. On that note, there are certain movies (and often books) that you can consume where you feel almost certain that this story is primarily just something that its writer straight up went through and decided to turn into a feature length media offering - this is 100% one of those movies. My gut tells me that the writer simply went through all of this herself, and decided to tell the story, perhaps primarily because the combination of things feels so specific that it doesn't seem like someone would pair these two themes together any other way, namely the standup comedy details with the nannying plot points. The subject matter isn't interesting enough for someone to focus on without having been through it in reality, I feel, and sadly, it's not quite interesting enough as a movie either. While Sennott's performance is the strongest thing about the entire movie, with it being as dynamic and enjoyable as hers generally are, it doesn't fulfill in many other ways in the end - the only other thing I really found enjoyable in the end was its ambition. Worth watching once for (divine lordess) Sennott fans - not sure who else.