It's a Disaster

It's a Disaster (2012)

You might not click with this movie right away, or at all, if you don't like the very ordinary style and very ordinary people this group of eight is meant to portray. I recognized too many of my friends, or friends of friends, in these clichéd types of people, and thought the acting and the situation very realistic.

Realistic within the bounds of a really funny somewhat absurdist comedy.

At first you have a gossipy parody of a weekend "couples brunch" where four couples converge, and have been regularly converging, to catch up and have fun. Except that secretly many of them really dread it, and there is some posing and whispering. As a viewer you enjoy the repartee, which is often pretty funny in a laugh out loud way, and you also try to figure out who is who, and whose is whose (the couples include at least one case of infidelity between them which complicates that part).

And I admit I might not have lasted an hour and half of this interplay, no matter how well performed. (To be emphasized, all eight are vivid and convincing in their own ways. It's the core of the movie that these are believable types.)

But you won't need patience once the huge (huge) twist comes along. It's a classic "ship of fools" scenario, and it's compressed into a very short space: a bunch of distinctive types of people find themselves trapped together in a crisis. That's just the interesting starting point, because it's how, exactly, those kind of people respond to crisis that makes it fascinating.

It works. We get to know the four or five most important people really quickly and when things shift and reactions mount--and the jokes keep flowing--you'll be right along for the ride. Some might call this a dark comedy since the backdrop becomes exceedingly dire, but the reality of that darkness is never salient. The humor, right to the very last three seconds, is cutting and bright.

Why, quite, this isn't a masterpiece is one of those amorphous mysteries of the movies. It lacks, I suppose, some sense of air, or of knowing-ness, or of a style that suffuses whether you quite realize it or not. Something about the very ordinariness of it all makes it wriggle in a sufficiency that keeps it from rising up, or getting really gritty. I don't think it's a flaw. It might even wear well over the years. But it makes some of the weaker characters and weaker lines glare just slightly.

See this? Yes! If you just hate the characters after ten minutes, you might give up. Even after the big twist about twenty minutes in the movie is very character driven. But if you sort of like their company and their humor, dive in and hang on. It's a hoot.

I saw this today as part of the New Orleans Film Festival. It is so funny, yet I think still pretty realistic (to an extent). I believe they said it would have a limited theater release in February (the director hopes on Valentines Day because that would be so funny considering the context of the film), and he said it should release on iTunes the same day, so you can see it anywhere. I definitely cannot wait until then so I can see it again. I'd say it's not a movie for everybody because some of the humor is a bit out there, but it's totally my taste, and it's not often I like comedies. The story was well written, and the characters change throughout the film, and it's really interesting how each character handles the disaster differently, and you can really relate to at least one of them. There are even some great surprises throughout the film. I was fortunate enough to hear the director speak about his film afterwards, and he really tuned us in to some of the foreshadowing elements present, and that's one of the reasons I want to see it again. This movie is perfect for anyone who has ever been in any sort of relationship and who doesn't have your conventional sense of humor.

I came to watch this movie because I'm a David Cross fan and it's the type of premise that appealed to me. I thought it did a great job of depicting the disaster w/out spending a lot of money. Special effects budget was probably somewhere around 200 bucks. It's structured similar to that Jodie Foster/John C. Reilly movie that came out recently, i.e. a couples get-together. Very funny but a lot of it might go over peoples heads if they're into more obvious comedies. It's starts easy, paced well throughout and had a great ending. A really good ending. I really want to mention my favorite parts but I wouldn't want to give any kind of spoiler. David Cross is a good barometer for whether or not you'd enjoy this. If you've heard his stand-up anyways. Watch it, and if you didn't like it, sorry. Just go watch Big Momma's House again and bask in your impeccable taste for comedy and superior intellect. Ciao homies.

I quite enjoyed this movie. Usually a end-of-the-world-movie involves lots of explosions but this movie took a whole different view on it.

The plot was genius: put a bunch of friends together, add a new person and make the world end. Taking place in a single house was a real nice idea, the mystery of not knowing what was going on outside really helped the plot.

The interactions the characters had in this film where funny, crazy and believable. Though its not a comedy where you are laughing all the time I found myself laughing more than in most big comedies.

Top notch acting really added to the experience. You normally don't expect such a cast in a low budget movie.

At times It's a Disaster is a bit hard to stay with, because essentially it is a film that focuses on the 'friends' who are together at one of their periodic 'couple's brunch'. While gossipy asides and barely concealed relationship tensions are present as normal, this particular brunch is marked out by some form of major attack on the US occurring as they sit to their meal. While responding to this is now on the agenda, what that means is different for each person, and of course the former business of the meal also still remains.

Recently I watched the sci-fi film Coherence, where the drama is all played out more or less in one house on one night. This film takes a similar approach and, although there is not really any other connection between the two films, it is interesting to see how the same basic location and ensemble structure can be used to support two such very different films. In this case the focus is the black comedy of the situation and although it is never as smart or as funny as one would have liked, it is consistently amusing in its acerbic characters and extreme background. The writing is a bit broad and it is no real surprise when infidelities and other such secrets emerge from within the group, but mostly it has a solid degree of truth about it all. The downside of this is that the characters are not particularly likable, so while elements of them are recognizable and amusing to observe, there is a lot about them which grate – which is part of the satire, but also a side effect.

The performances are mixed. Cross plays the straight man of the group really well and also allows a character for the viewer to follow, since he is new to the group; Stiles and Ferrera are also both reliable. For the others it was variable but not as memorable as these three. The writing is part of the limit on them, since it is broad across the group, with simpler characters rather than fleshed out ones. Filming around the one set of rooms is well done, and I liked the repeated external shot of the house – and that we never see more of the outside world than this. As a while, the film is too broad to really be brilliant, and it never skewers its characters as it should, or produces great laughs, or something deeper. It works for what it does, but I can understand the mixed response to it, because it is only okay rather than brilliant.