March 14--So many movies about comedians or comic improvisers are terrible because A.) They're not funny, or they're funny in a completely inauthentic way; and B.) They're stuck with all sorts of fraudulent, ginned-up plot contrivances instead of creating and concentrating on characters sharing the same literal and head space, pursuing a peculiar line of work.
But I just saw a movie on this subject that really works; it's funny, melancholy, sweet-natured but bracingly honest about the psychology, the insecurity and the reality of pursuing a show business dream as a member of a (fictional) improvisational comedy troupe.
Needless to say the movie will mean a lot to a lot of people in Chicago, home of the late improv teacher and guru Del Close, who is name-checked several times in writer-director Mike Birbiglia's "Don't Think Twice."
Birbiglia stars with Keegan-Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs, Chris Gethard and several others as the collaborators in a Brooklyn-based troupe called The Commune. Cracks in the group's supportive ensemble appear when two of the members score an audition with the hallowed late-night TV show "Weekend Live" ("Saturday Night Live" by another name). The improv sequences in "Don't Think Twice" are genuinely sharp; more importantly, the offstage dramas and relationships feel lived-in and closely observed. The insecurities and jealousies and disappointments bubble up from each new scene naturally.
Birbiglia told me the film is likely to launch via a theatrical release this summer, supported by a 30-city tour, much as the comedian did with "Sleepwalk With Me." "Don't Think Twice" marks a huge step up for the comedian as a director. The movie has far more in common with films such as Paul Mazursky's "Next Stop, Greenwich Village" or Barry Levinson's "Diner" than it does with something like the Tom Hanks/Sally Field vehicle "Punchline."
Anyway, this isn't really a movie about comedy, Birbiglia said. "It's about people, and jealousy, but it's rooted in comedy. Four out of six of us were improvisers for 15 years, and two of us we taught. You have to make sure it's believable. It's like a dance movie. The people (on screen) had better be good dancers."
"Don't Think Twice" doesn't too get too preoccupied with narrative machinery. "It's a movie that is ultimately best when it's ruminative, " Birbiglia told me. In the editing phase, "there were points when we had too much plot, and people were, like, 'I don't give a s--- about that part.'" Other times, they reshot footage to state something more directly, or to add a button. Crucially, Gethard has a quiet moment when the troupe members, most of whom are in their mid-30s, are packing up their longtime space (it's being sold) and the character notes that "your 20s are all about hope. And your 30s are all about how dumb it was to hope." The line may sound thesis-y but it plays beautifully, like so much of the rest of "Don't Think Twice."
