I watched the movie Happily written and directed by BenDavid Grabinski Friday and then had the joy of watching City Lights written and directed by Charlie Chaplin for two nights straight. And now you already know which was the DOY! as in the DUMB of the two films.
To be fair BenDavid (a tellingly ridiculous name) grew up in the ‘everyone gets a prize’ new abnormal and hence is crippled as far as honing true creativity. But even I could write a better script than Happily. Who watches the end result on this cast and pats themselves on the back for a job well done?
And to spread my criticism, ditto the eye roll for J Blakeson, same generation, for I Care A Lot, which was at least a little smarter. But the people who truly ‘enjoyed’ this, given a lie detector test, would admit it was great mainly for the hot actresses.
Why did I bother with Happily in the first place? Joel McHale. I loved him for The Soup which he took over from Greg Kinnear and kicked it up a notch. I was also happy to see Al Madrigal former Daily Show correspondent who received only two minutes of screen time. Unfortunately, great comedians can’t salvage crappy writing. The only actress who impressed me in the cast was Natalie Morales, who plays a no nonsense alpha. The movie had a great premise: an overly happy married couple is suspected as weird or alien by all of their cynical and unhappily coupled friends. And from there is devolves into stupidity.
To Gen Xers and Millenialls: dark comedies are lazy. “Ooh let’s team laughter with bloody violence and mistreatment.” Guess what? NOT funny.
Go back to film school and see how to pair comedy with pathos (City Lights a great way to start). You wonder why society’s so angry? It’s because no one slows down enough to feel anything, hence, without being self-aware, folks walk around deprived of tough and real emotion (both love and hate).
