Funny Ha Ha

To make sense of this movie's cryptic title, I think you have to invert the saying. What's the opposite of something that's "funny ha ha"? Something that's "funny weird," or "funny awkward." And that right there is an extremely apt description of this low-tech 2003 oddity, a 16mm romantic comedy shot on location in Boston in 16mm by a guy named Andrew Bujalski, and starring himself, his roommate and some other graduate film student friends.

Bujalski has a mind for comedy like Larry David, creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," or Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, creators of "The Office" and "Extras." Okay, so he's not exactly as brilliant as those guys. He's just a young guy, though, and he's got a terrific ear for naturalistic dialogue (earning his film comparisons to Richard Linklater's 90's landmark Slacker.)

I mean by the comparison that his film mines the uncomfortable, unguarded social moments for comedy and insight. Composed entirely of conversations between a lethargic 24 year old girl named Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) and her circle of friends, Funny Ha Ha asks you to look for the brief, fleeting moments of honesty that pop up during the middle of bullshit conversations. It's hard to tell if the film was largely improvised (it seems that way because of the realism of the delivery, with people talking over one another or flubbing words) or just made with extreme attention to natural dialogue readings. Either way, Bujalski's take on the way 20-somethings communicate and don't communicate always ring true, sometimes remarkably so.



Though not a whole lot actually happens in Funny Ha Ha, and the film has no action or set pieces to speak of, it's not like there's nothing going on. Apparently, Bujalski has earned comparisons to John Cassavettes, but I don't really see his desire to make works of transcendental awareness or moments of intense emotional catharsis. He's just making a human comedy that's particularly human, keenly aware of how detached young people, afraid of over-extending themselves, slowly get to know one another and themselves with extreme trepidation.

Marnie likes Alex (Christian Rudder), who until recently was involved with Nina (Vanessa Bertozzi). Now that he's free, Alex's sister (Lissa Patton Rudder) urges Marnie to make a move on him. But she's rejected. Ouch. Then, he goes ahead and elopes with Nina anyway. Marnie finds limited solace in a series of bland temp jobs and a newfound friendship with a nerd named Mitchell (Bujalski himself).

The focus isn't on what happens, as highlighted in particular by the ending, which doesn't make any attempt to resolve any of the conflicts encountered during the film. Instead, it's on Marnie, and how she's desperate for change and yet unwilling to alter her carefully set routine. At one point, she makes a checklist of things she'd like to start doing. The list includes going without alcohol for 1 month, making friends with the girl at her work and trying to occasionally go outdoors. As goals go, they're not exactly lofty.

But Funny Ha Ha isn't only a character study about a comely sunkeneyed slacker. It's also about the nature of honesty in relationships - how we always give lip service to the idea that it's always best to say what's on your mind, when everyone knows genuinely telling people how you feel usually makes things uncomfortable.

There's a sad inevitability, for example, to the scene where Mitchell asks Marnie out on their last day working together. It's painfully obvious he's smitten with her, and equally clear that she has no interest in him despite not having any other male companionship going. And yet...there's no chance he's not going to ask her. All his life, he and every other American male has has the notion pounded into their head - you can't get a date if you never ask a girl. You have a take a chance.

She tries to let him down easy, he asks for her number anyway, and just when it seems the exchange can't get any more horrible, it's suddenly over. What develops from there is a surprising, if strange, little friendship that I won't spoil by discussing any further.

I've talked before about enjoying the experience of relating personally to a film, as in the scene in Me and You and Everyone We Know where the Dad stops the kid from jiggling his leg. Funny Ha Ha has several of these universal kinds of moments that movies are usually too busy to catch. The way self-conscious people turn to self-effacing humor when they're put in an awkward situation (like when an uncoordinated guy is handed a basketball). The way drunk people turn belligerant moments before they turn completely helpless. That awkward moment when you unexpectedly see a friend at the grocery store, and they invite you to come and have dinner with them since you obviously haven't yet eaten, and you don't feel like going but you don't have a good excuse, so there's that second when it becomes clear to them that you're thinking of an excuse, and you both apologize and then there's this weird thing between the two of you the next time you see one another. All that kind of stuff is in this movie.

Funny Ha Ha receieved a C on Yahoo Movies and low marks on IMDB (where one commentor refers to the film as "an abomination.") I can see how it's not for everyone. The dialogue is funny, and there are a number of jokes, but it's not really a laugh-out-loud comedy, and the wit is extremely dry. (Bujalski does get extra credit for paying attention to how inside jokes work among friends. In an early scene, Marnie and friends joke around about hummas, and Marnie brings up the condiment again later for a cheap joke. That's great stuff.)

What's surprising, though, is that one of the comments on IMDB makes kind of a quasi-Marxist critique of the film.

The characters in this film are white college graduates who are happy or unhappy with their lives after graduation. It's hard to root for any of them, they basically come across as a whiny elite who live in nice apartments and complain about their shallow lives... it's pretty forgetable.

First off, nowhere is it implied that all the characters are college grads. Marnie and Alex met in college, we know, but that's it for college references. Also, I'd have to argue that these people are "elite," and they certainly don't live in "nice apartments." Most of these places are complete shitholes, in keeping with the extremely low-budget, grainy look of the film.

But the part of this comment I'd take the most issue with is calling the film "shallow." This is probably the kind of guy who thinks Cinderella Man is deep. Funny Ha Ha is shallow in the way that spending a lazy afternoon with friends is "shallow." Sure, it's not productive, you're not learning anything about how Russell Crowe is a better person than you or that The Great Depression was a difficult and challenging time frought with challenges, but you might gain a little bit of insight into the way other people see the world, or the ways in which you encounter relationships. Is there no room in a film diet for a different kind of movie with those kinds of simple observations?