Place à l'impro

One of the best movies of the year. Grounded, realistic, funny, and bittersweet. If you want a pure comedy, this isn't the movie for you. It certainly is funny, but it is also spend a fair chunk of the movie on characters and conflict. It's dramatic parts actually ended up working better than the comedic elements for me.

The acting was surprisingly very good for actors who have made their names in comedy and improv. Gillian Jacobs and Chris Gethard were the standouts, though each of the actors has at least one standout moment.

Not for everyone certainly, but very good and one of the best of the year. I think I'll finally get around to seeing Birbiglia's other movie "Sleepwalk With We" now.

"I think for anyone - male or female - in improv, the biggest thing to get over is the fear. I think every improviser has that." Rachel Dratch

Don't Think Twice makes you think more than once about not just the enormous demands of comedy, including fear of failure, but also about doing anything for a profession that may give you little to no compensation other than the joy of doing what you love and are good at.

More than anything else, this comedy makes a poignant comment on the irony of talented people making it while other talents struggle never to be recognized. Miles (writer-director Mile Birbiglia) feels it painfully as he sees Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) win a spot on Weekend Live (no doubt, Saturday Night Live) while Miles and his other colleagues labor in the lesser venue of NYC on the improv team, The Commune.

As the title of their improv group suggests, their work is communal, depending on an effort for which individual spotlights have no place. Ironically, Jack wins the Weekend Live job partially by standing out doing a solo routine even though his colleagues warned him against it.

Don't Think Twice does an effective job of showing the inherent contradictions of communal support and individual talent. In the matter of a romance between Jack and Sam (Gillian Jacobs), the tensions between their emerging rewards for their talent and sacrifice are subtly displayed in their loving routines and their personal love.

You would not be surprised to know how difficult it would be to determine which bits in the movie are improv and which are rehearsed, so good are the performers. Even that puzzle supports a theme about the intersection of reality and artifice, a benign clash between the creative improvisation and the spontaneity of life itself. Both bring their rewards and disappointments.

Here is a comedy with touches of real life--hey, I think that's what life itself is all about.

"Fall and then figure out what to do on the way down." Miles (Birbiglia) has been running a improv troupe for many years and is still waiting for his big break. Everyone in the group is excited when scouts from the show Weekend Live show up one night. Everyone is riding high after the show but when Jack (Key) is the only one chosen the lives of every start to change. Reality hits everyone and they all begin to wonder what their lives are really about. This is a good movie, but not really for everyone. There is some funny comedy in this, but the movie is really more or less a character study of a group of very different people all trying for the same goal. The movie is more dramatic than I expected and feels very real, which adds to the enjoyment of this. Overall, funny and just real. Not for everyone, feels like a stage play but I did like it. I give this a B.

Don't Think Twice is a tremendously satisfying film about a very specific world, and anybody familiar with the gruelling hustle of comics, writers and improvisers vying for any measure of success in those fields will recognize many of the characters and small details that Mike Birbiglia has written into this film. Outsiders, though, don't have to worry that this is all "inside baseball" for comedy nerds because the emotions and relationships that propel this film are pretty universal. Driven by a talented ensemble and featuring as many poignant moments as genuine laugh lines, this humble film may stick with you a lot longer than you'd expect.

One great quality of the film is that the acting feels natural, actual people having actual conversations. But the actors are pretty much playing themselves. It's cheating, but still entertaining.

Aside from one shallow trait (this one likes to draw, this one has rich parents, this one is Gillian Jacobs, etc.), the characters are the same person: Snarky, mopey, likes to mess with people, and appreciates the art of impov.

Rants about growing old and how following your dreams can be a nightmare are sprinkled throughout the movie, but not in a painful way.

I would value this movie more if I haven't seen so many indie comedies that talk about the same thing.

Unless you're not tired of indie movies yet and you still like seeing your favorite indie comedy actors do stuff, you'll probably just shrug your shoulders.