Funny Ha Ha

This seemed to be just the kind of movie I enjoy, but turned out to be a shell of the same.

The director gets some things right, like his choice of star and some of the scene pacing. Dialog and character interactions breathe properly; they're languid and yet vaporous, as some other reviewers have said.

Too bad they all come to nothing. Marnie's a vacuous amalgam, not a character; she's the camera, not a human being. Encounters and relationships don't build through sequence or consequence; almost nothing happens that informs or affects a subsequent scene. Through her, we see the other characters, who are almost universally portrayed by much lesser actors. There's no character arc; the script feels self-indulgent and ultimately trivial. The entire movie is Marnie amused, Marnie bemused, Marnie bored... audience bored.

Bujalski had the pieces to make a remarkable film, but instead he never got the transmission out of neutral.

where have we heard this before? Ah yes, Woody Allen on down to his character actor acquaintance Larry David (creator of Seinfeld), etc...., etc.... Yes, it was once a novel idea. In 1979.

Has anyone who watched this ever seen Woody Allen's "Manhattan"? you will be interested in the parallels.

This was filmed primarily in Allston and Cambridge, and I agree with an early reviewer, who stated that a mirror image of his own single life there was reflected. Imagine each person living in The Back Bay or South End with a similar story. After all everyone has experienced the void of dating, working in Boston,(or any metro area city) and going home alone on your birthday. Not exactly earth shattering.

Kate Dollenmayer is not bad as the primary character, but Andrew Bujalski has so many Allen-like mannerisms, it is almost embarrassing to watch. The only members of the audience who will not pick this out would have to be 17 years old, at most.

There are a few decent scenes, the awkwardness Kate feels with an old boyfriend, the vacuous conversation at a keg party, but really; is this considered different?. If it is, then next time you or I go to the supermarket we should tag along someone with a handy cam, start a conversation, and we too would be considered a writer/director.

Looking like a documentary, this movie captures well life at the age of the characters, that I remember when I was that age: direction-less and insecure. The problem is, a glimpse into people's personal lives aren't necessarily interesting, and I wanted more to happen or for the story to be more interesting. I also wondered why characters we saw a lot of in the beginning of the movie, simply disappeared with no explanation. Alex's unexpected marriage was never explained, nor did Marnie seem to try to find out how this marriage came about. In keeping with the theme of a segment of someone's life snipped out randomly and put on film, the ending provided no resolution to anything, but I felt it could have been less abrupt and arbitrary.

An ultra-low budget film about aimless twenty-somethings wasting their lives brings to mind Richard Lindlater's 'Slacker'; and while Andrew Bujalski's film lacks that movie's experimental formlessness, it does share something of the same mood. The cinematography has the feel of a super-eight home movie; but the piece is acutely observed and feels real throughout. Unfortuantly, it's just not that interesting, in part because its characters just aren't that interesting, and in a sense this isn't accidental; their directionless existence owes much to the fact that they simply haven't lived enough to have anything to care about, anything to say. And while there should be a profound sadness underpinning this, and some sociological analysis, the film never seems to scrape below its surface of whiny, unhappy people. You wouldn't dislike these people in real life, but if they have any notable attributes, they're not on display, and you wouldn't go out of your way to spend time in their company. But what's true of the characters is sadly also true of the film that contains them.

Very slooooow... You'll probably have a couple of smiles but you won't be able to stop checking your watch and wondering when it is going to end. Don't waste your time unless you're really deep into independent movies.