I Used to Be Funny

Grade: B+

I once worked at a place that often put on a station that played soft, pensive acoustic guitar driven songs – the kind you’d hear in a pretentious indie movie. A co-worker and I would routinely joke about it. “This is the song that would play while the hero is standing outside in the rain, maybe after the second-act argument” or “This is the song that would play in the last scene leading up to the end credits, maybe as a convertible travels on a scenic mountainy back road at sunset.” I Used to Be Funny leans into this so much, as if it’s saying “You don’t need to make such a fuss over little old us. We’ll just be a cute indie film that will play at one or two art houses in big cities, and we’ll be out of your hair soon.” It’s unfortunate it doesn’t announce itself with more authority, because this is a pretty great movie.

Rachel Sennott has some of the best comedic chops of anyone I’ve seen working in the movies today. I knew, from Bottoms and Bodies Bodies Bodies, that she was funny. In I Used to Be Funny, she proves an effective dramatic actress. She plays Sam, a stand-up comedian in Toronto. The club-goers love her, but she has stepped away from it for a while, due to PTSD from factors you’ll find out about. She was the nanny for Brooke, who was 12 when Sam met and began working for the family. She is 16 or 17 in the latest period of the movie.

Brooke’s mother is terminally ill, and dad works a lot. She is moody and hostile towards Sam at first, but they build a nice relationship quickly, to the point where Sam is Brooke’s favorite person. In the present day, Brooke has been missing. Sam is guilt-stricken for not foreseeing this and doing more to prevent it, and has put herself on a hiatus from the stage. She has broken up with her boyfriend, kicked him out of the house, and has a near-obsession with finding Brooke.

I long to see a fictional non-biopic movie about a comedian, where their act is actually funny. I Used to Be Funny suffers from the same malady as Ezra last month, where I wasn’t that entertained by the comic’s set. It doesn’t detract too much here. The movie jumps back and forth through time, a la Challengers. It’s necessary for dramatic effect. If it were told in a straight, chronological line, some big reveals would be telegraphed early, followed by lulls. By the end, all the blanks are filled and I was no longer confused. My favorite sequencing regards the “carbon monoxide” piece. We get one scene, which is odd without context – then significantly later on (technically “right before”), we are shown the moments that set up the part that I thought was strange but now makes sense.

On several levels, Sennott is one of my favorite people in the business right now. In the midst of a movie with some unearned heavy-handedness, she is always there bringing texture to it and moving things along. I Used to Be Funny is engaging, engrossing, rich, and certainly memorable. I was never bored, and I was hanging on to every word, in constant search of the next clue or morsel of information they might throw us. The narrative structure may frustrate some viewers, but I loved the way the payoffs emerged, with each new unveiling. You don’t put a jigsaw puzzle together in order, but you have a complete one by the end.

Grade: B+