Movie Review: Funny Ha-Ha

I first saw Andrew Bujalski's "Funny Ha-Ha" over two years ago on the Sundance Channel. I've watched it a few times since then, and every time-- every single time-- I come away from it with something new, something different, something extraordinary.

In brief: it follows the post-college misadventures of Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer). She-- like all the characters in the film-- doesn't really know what she wants to do with her life now that it's starting. She's very much in love with her zany friend Alex (Christian Rudder), who is married. Alex waffles back and forth between Marnie and his wife, and this ambivalent waffling is indicative of all the people in Marnie's circle. And then there's Mitchell, played convincingly by Bujalski himself, who carries his own torch for Marnie.

In summary form, the plot seems pretty ordinary, the stuff of a thousand romantic comedies. But the plot isn't nearly as important as the texture, the characters, the way in which Bujalski chooses to tell this story. I hesitate to apply a word like "documentary" to a work of fiction, but it does capture the feeling of the hand-held camera work, spontaneous performances, and moments of actual honest-to-goodness life.

The plot doesn't move forward like a machine; instead, it stretches outwards and around, each piece revealing something about Marnie, her friends, and her world. It's kind of like a Transformer: you start with a truck, but piece by piece, movement by movement, you come to the realization that it is a robot (in disguise). The ending does not tidy everything up: it is not cathartic; instead, you reach a kind of understanding about everything, an understanding that you cannot even put in words, rivaling the best films of Ozu.

And then there's the stuttering. I can't remember the last time I watched someone stutter in a film, trying to push through false starts and "likes" and "ums" to get a complete sentence out. (Or, at least, the last time someone stuttered and it wasn't forced or a joke.) To surrender your film so completely to the cadences of every-day speak either takes cajones or stupidity.

But Bujalski isn't stupid. Not only is the stuttering unnervingly real, but it's also thematically relevant to characters who are trying desperately to jump-start their lives. When it is discovered that Alex has gotten married, the whys of it are never explained. But I think it's because Alex wants to be a grown-up, he wants to count and to be important, he wants to say that he's doing something with his life.

Or does he? Alex still clings desperately to bad jokes and a cloak of zaniness. He still wants to be the fun guy. He wants to be married and he wants Marnie. Or does he?

I think that's the best question to ask while watching this film: "or does (s)he?" Because even the characters don't know what they want. Except for, I think, Mitchell.

Mitchell wants Marnie, and he doesn't hide it. There's a scene where Mitchell and Marnie are in a restaurant. Mitchell promises not to bring up or discuss or ask questions about Marnie being single. Almost immediately after doing so, he does. There's a creeping hostility in his voice, the anger that all the nerdy, dejected young men feel because they are nerdy and dejected. It's as if he's saying, hey, you're not with anybody-- why not me?

And I think it's absolutely right and positively accurate that Mitchell have this anger in him, anger that comes out in increasingly hostile and impulsive ways. Otherwise, the audience might root for him. "C'mon, Marnie! Alex is a jerk and keeps changing his mind. Go for Mitchell! He's a nice guy!"

But Mitchell isn't a nice guy anymore than he is a bad one or an angry one. He's as mixed-up and confused in his own way as Marnie and Alex and all the rest. By not allying the audience's sympathies with any one of Marnie's suitors, he doesn't so much subvert the tropes of a romantic comedy but rather deepens them: makes them real and tangible and achingly relatable.