MIFF 2022 Film Review - Funny Pages
Images courtesy of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
Funny Pages, Funny… People. Funny Pages, Funny People, Funny Pages- Funny People! Imagine a thinking emoji right here. Imagine I’m in solemn contemplation.
I’d like to think that spiritual successors aren’t out of style and that the magic of being outwardly inspired by another film when creating your own still exists. I mean, I have a very hard time believing that something as delicate as copyright regarding inspiration doesn’t impede the simple beauty of recreating a storyline from a separate angle, but by God Funny Pages screams new-age Funny People to me – and that’s a big compliment in my books.
There’s a unique comedy to be found in cynicism, one which beats you over the head to make you find joy in anguish. The beating in Funny Pages comes from a desperately insecure comic prodigy deeming it necessary to source a ruthlessly vindictive mentor after his first one is too… encouraging? I can’t say I fully comprehend the journey of Robert, but this is the course of events when trying to understand a teenager. Their warped opinions and conclusions obscure logic in any situation, and a comic-strip Crown-Prince finding his balance in a traditional household which implores an educated career path will surely lead any hormonal kid to find the literal worst situation they could be in at that time.
Simply slipping into your dream career without any transitory pains is the kind of dream all of us have post-uni. Just look at Funny People, where Seth Rogen worked under Adam Sandler, and it nearly killed Rogen’s passion for comedy. Funny Pages is also full of disappointment, for I have learnt that any movie with ‘funny’ in the title is almost guaranteed to be a nuanced take on humour that tackles the overarching sadness found in the funniest people.
This movie does excel at creating scenes though, the kind where an aging adult stands naked atop a desk while his apprentice illustrates his genitals to be obscenely small. It’s absolutely spectacular. Scenes are built to facilitate incredibly humorous shots which could easily fuel an entire page of comic strips in the most vulgar newspapers, ripe with yucks and extraordinary when out of context.
A funny movie that pummels its audience with trauma, for whatever reason, truly clicks with me, and apparently an entirely sold-out theatre too, so I can’t be too outside the mainstream in deeming Funny Pages worthy of a nuanced contemplation.
Funny Pages is screening as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival, running in cinemas August 4-21 and online August 11-28. For tickets and more info, click here.