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She's Funny that Way
With a proven commodity in the director's chair, the 2015 screwball comedy She's Funny that Way does take a few minutes to get going, but eventually delivers laughs, thanks to meticulous direction and a terrific ensemble cast.
This is the story of a struggling actress and part-time call girl named Isabella (Imogen Poots) who finds herself involved with a crazy group of theater people who are all part of a new Broadway show called A GRECIAN EVENING. The other primary players in this contemporary drawing room comedy include the play's director Arnold Adamson (Owen Wilson), his wife and the star of the play Delta (Kathryn Hahn), the arrogant leading man, Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), the playwright (Will Forte); his bitchy psychiatrist wife (Jennifer Aniston); a philandering Judge (Austin Pendleton); and Isabella's parents (Richard Lewis, Cybill Shepherd).
About 20 minutes into this movie, I actually said to myself, "this reminds me of that Peter Bognovich movie Noises Off", so imagine my shock when I learned that this film was directed and co-written by Bogdanovich. I was also intrigued to learn that he co-wrote the screenplay with the late Dorothy Stratten's kid sister, Louise. The story also contains elements of Bogdanovich's film with Dorothy, They All Laughed, but the story is a little more focused here...yes, the focus comes in slowly, but once the viewer starts putting together who is who here, this one turned out to be a lot of fun.
Bogdanovich proved way back in 1972 that he knows how to do screwball comedy with his classic What's Up, Doc and there are elements of that film here as well. Bogdanovich's work here is definitely influenced by other films, but their his films, so it's OK.
He's put together a wonderful ensemble cast to pull this caper off with standout work from Wilson, Hahn, Aniston, and Ifans. Poots is a little hard to take at times, that Brooklyn accent was a little much. And if you don't blink, you might catch cameos from Collen Camp, Michael Shannon, Lucy Punch, Tatum O'Neal, Jennifer Esposito, and Quentin Tarantino. Once this one shifts to first gear, laugh-out-loud hilarity is provided right through the closing credits.
With a proven commodity in the director's chair, the 2015 screwball comedy She's Funny that Way does take a few minutes to get going, but eventually delivers laughs, thanks to meticulous direction and a terrific ensemble cast.
This is the story of a struggling actress and part-time call girl named Isabella (Imogen Poots) who finds herself involved with a crazy group of theater people who are all part of a new Broadway show called A GRECIAN EVENING. The other primary players in this contemporary drawing room comedy include the play's director Arnold Adamson (Owen Wilson), his wife and the star of the play Delta (Kathryn Hahn), the arrogant leading man, Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), the playwright (Will Forte); his bitchy psychiatrist wife (Jennifer Aniston); a philandering Judge (Austin Pendleton); and Isabella's parents (Richard Lewis, Cybill Shepherd).
About 20 minutes into this movie, I actually said to myself, "this reminds me of that Peter Bognovich movie Noises Off", so imagine my shock when I learned that this film was directed and co-written by Bogdanovich. I was also intrigued to learn that he co-wrote the screenplay with the late Dorothy Stratten's kid sister, Louise. The story also contains elements of Bogdanovich's film with Dorothy, They All Laughed, but the story is a little more focused here...yes, the focus comes in slowly, but once the viewer starts putting together who is who here, this one turned out to be a lot of fun.
Bogdanovich proved way back in 1972 that he knows how to do screwball comedy with his classic What's Up, Doc and there are elements of that film here as well. Bogdanovich's work here is definitely influenced by other films, but their his films, so it's OK.
He's put together a wonderful ensemble cast to pull this caper off with standout work from Wilson, Hahn, Aniston, and Ifans. Poots is a little hard to take at times, that Brooklyn accent was a little much. And if you don't blink, you might catch cameos from Collen Camp, Michael Shannon, Lucy Punch, Tatum O'Neal, Jennifer Esposito, and Quentin Tarantino. Once this one shifts to first gear, laugh-out-loud hilarity is provided right through the closing credits.