On stage, comedians use their words to make their audience laugh, gasp, or think\u2014sometimes simultaneously. But what happens when a joke is used against a comedian? It\u2019s one of the many thorny ideas Ally Pankiw\u2019s bold feature debut \u201cI Used to Be Funny\u201d wrestles with over the course of its emotional story.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When we first meet Sam (Rachel Sennott), she\u2019s in a very serious funk, barely making it to the shower, withdrawn from the limelight of her local comedy club, and her good friends and concerned roommates Paige (Sabrina Jalees) and Philip (Caleb Hearon) are covering her rent. Why she is in such a state is revealed through a breadcrumb trail of flashbacks and passing conversations. We learn that Sam was also once an au pair for a troubled young teen named Brooke (Olga Petsa), whose mother is dying, her aunt Jill (Dani Kind) can only help so much, and her father Cameron (Jason Jones) is tied up with work. Sam steps into her life as a kind of supportive older sister, but that too is talked about in the past tense. Sam used to be funny, but no longer. What happened to her?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Written and directed by Pankiw, Sam\u2019s story weaves between her present emotional turmoil and the outgoing version of herself who\u2019s funny and caring. Pankiw carefully constructs her narrative, doling out just enough morsels of information to keep the audience intrigued in the mystery without getting in its characters’ way. We see Sam and Brooke grow close then apart in Pankiw\u2019s fractured timeline, which lends further meaning to each previous interaction when seen together. Their shared moments together are the highlight of \u201cI Used to Be Funny,\u201d so the contrasts in their dynamic before and after an unspoken incident make the loss of their camaraderie feel even more pronounced.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pankiw\u2019s movie does more than just follow the adventures of a babysitter\/stand-up comedian and her young but troubled charge. It soon becomes an exploration of trauma and its effect on one\u2019s creativity and their relationships. As this mystery seeps into every aspect of Sam\u2019s life, like water flooding a home, it leaves behind both visible and invisible damage in its wake. The violence she experiences ripples out to affect those she cares for in unintentional ways. Pankiw explores the issue of Sam\u2019s words being used against her, with her own jokes becoming weapons against their creator in a court, a reminder that the conversations sparked by #MeToo are still far from over. In trying to reclaim her own narrative, Sam must work even harder to hold onto her comedic self and the relationships that matter most to her lest they too are destroyed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To bring Sam\u2019s arc to life, Sennott essentially plays two characters, one before and one after the event. In one portion of the movie, she\u2019s bright, energetic, and unafraid to deliver raunchy punchlines onstage or argue over Team Jacob or Edward to make a teenager smile. In the other half of the movie, Sennot looks worn down by the world; her shoulders are shrugged as if to protect herself, and\u00a0she walks the apartment like a ghost of the outgoing personality we see in brief flashbacks. Although her previous roles in movies like \u201cShiva Baby,\u201d \u201cBodies Bodies Bodies,\u201d and \u201cBottoms\u201d showcased her comedic chops, Sennott proves herself every bit as sharp as a dramatic actress.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On stage, comedians use their words to make their audience laugh, gasp, or think\u2014sometimes simultaneously. But what happens when a joke is used against a comedian? It\u2019s one of the many thorny ideas Ally Pankiw\u2019s bold feature debut \u201cI Used to Be Funny\u201d wrestles with over the course of its emotional story.\u00a0 When we first …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[33,45],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comedy-movies","tag-comedy","tag-drama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}