Funny Ha Ha (2002) Reviews

• Boston... Land of the angry brunettes

  deancapetanelis2005-09-09

  Sitting through this movie is just like the tedium of actually trying to find a date in Boston. This movie, much like most of the city of Boston is populated by men who can't find a date and the women who don't want to date them. So OK, the director basically held a mirror up to my early 20's when I was that underemployed guy sleeping on the floor on a foam pad with my girlfriend in that little Queensbury Street studio apartment. So OK it really is not a very forgiving city when you're single and lonely. Unfortunately in this film there is no real story worth caring about. Some shallow people do shallow things hoping no one notices how shallow they are by punctuating every movement with witty pseudo-intellectualism. Again, just like living in Boston. So for that I applaud the director. He really captured the Hub at its grittiest. That and the film is so refreshingly free of production values. It's like looking at old home movies of people you once cared about but have since outgrown.

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• Good "slice-of-life" movie, but is it interesting?

  kolyanbogie2006-09-22

  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.

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• the joke's on us

  scrybbler2009-02-25

  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.

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• Whiny, unhappy people

  paul2001sw-12008-03-15

  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.

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• Deserves more than one sitting

  sdfsdl892005-07-26

  It took me a couple of hours after I finished watching "Funny Ha Ha" to realize that I'd seen a terrific movie. It raises so many little questions and offers so many quiet insights that one sitting isn't enough. While its title might fit one of those saccharine studio "youth" pictures where Reese Witherspoon lands her dream job/dream guy by being relentlessly spunky and charming, it's actually the perfect antidote to that sort of thing. This film examines the awkward period after college and before reality pounces. It isn't neatly plotted, but feels as gawky and half-formed as its post-adolescent characters. It doesn't quite know what to say next, and when it does latch on to an idea it usually evaporates before reaching a conclusion. It looks thrift-shoppy, with grainy photography and a lighting scheme that owes more to Home Depot than the American Society of Cinematographers. It's shot in cruddy apartments and tacky offices. Writer/director Andrew Bujalski films his shaggy-dog story in a stammering, hesitant style that fits perfectly with his protagonists. It's a wonderfully accurate portrait of aimless youth, which movies love to celebrate as freedom and adventure, but which is actually pretty boring most of the time. Marnie, the 23-year-old central character -- let's be charitable and call her the heroine -- doesn't have a firm idea of who she is, where she's going or what she hopes for from life. She keeps a notebook full of self-improvement initiatives such as "Go to museum" and "Spend more time outside." She's a slacker's slacker stuck in a quarter-life crisis, and one of the best-rendered characters I've seen in an American movie since "Sideways." The lanky Kate Dollenmayer is wonderful as Marnie, giving her inarticulate dialogue the ring of everyday speech. A nonprofessional actress, she was one of the animators on Richard Linklater's "Waking Life," and she fits perfectly into that appealing, eccentric universe. Marnie can't express a thought without backing up and approaching it several times. Observing her conversations is like watching someone learn to parallel-park. Marnie is at loose ends, temping and hanging out with old school chums, but unable to commit to any decision that would move her life forward. When she's buzzed, she visits a tattoo parlor, but can't decide whether she wants a geometrical design or a cow. The patient owner eases her out the door. In a twisted come-on line, she tells an available fellow at a party that she thought about becoming a nun, but hasn't been "completely chaste." Her romantic sights are mainly set on Alex (Christian Rudder), who continually half-flirts with her before dancing away. Still, she claims to have a boyfriend when a drab co-worker (Bujalski) asks her out. They have a series of non-dates, cringe-inducing affairs in which polite chat can't disguise the lack of a spark between them. Alex has a couple of coffee dates with Marnie, too, and she comes alive in his presence, revealing a goofy sense of humor and confidence she can't tap into under other circumstances. Unfortunately, he's just stringing her along. The film builds to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Marnie sees him in a new light. "Funny Ha Ha" will exasperate mainstream moviegoers, but patient viewers will find it insightful and funny and sad. It's destined to have a long life in many a video store's "cult-classics" section.

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