FilmSnobReviews

Title: She’s Funny That Way
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Starring: Owen Wilson, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins

What It Is: When director Arnold Albertson (Wilson) has a tryst with a lady of the night named Glow (whose real name is Isabella) she (Poots) is given a golden ticket in the form of $30,000 from Arnold. She uses it to start her acting career. Her first audition just so happens to be for a new play directed by…Arnold. As we learn throughout the story this isn’t the first time Arnold has cheated on his actress wife (Hahn) and then given money to the escort herself.

What We Think: This is what a Woody Allen movie would look like if he made one of his earlier films today. It’s clustered with a screwball sensibility, and that’s really awesome to see. As a huge fan of some of the classic screwball comedies it is wonderfully refreshing to see that brought back a bit. It’ just a bit too bad that the film as a while doesn’t bring anything to the table. From an acting perspective there’s solid actors giving alright performances. Kathryn Hahn seems to be hamming it up, but I think that may have been how Bogdanovich told her to play it. Wilson seems to be doing what he always does and plays it naive. He does the bumbling idiot thing we’ve seen from him multiple times before.

Our Grade: C, It’s so very average. You’d really expect a lot more given the cast this one has. It’s wasted talent and wasted potential. It really upsets me that there exist a film like this. One that might have ventured to warrant the ability of the screwball genre to still gather an audience and make them laugh. Perhaps we’ll see another attempt that stick closer to comedy and less towards over complication.