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No matter what movies and sitcoms may suggest, no family is perfect. Every family has its issues, its drama, its battles, and its black sheep. But if you think your family is a mess, you might change your mind after seeing Funny Story.
Funny Story reconnects with a father and his daughter during a weekend getaway. While attempting to break up with his much-younger girlfriend, former TV star Walter (Matthew Glave) finds out that he’s going to be a dad again. He’s not sure how to break it to his daughter, Nic (Jana Winternitz), but he knows that he has to do it in person. Walter decides to join Nic and her friends on a trip to Big Sur—but when Nic asks him to give Kim (Emily Bett Rickards) a ride, everything starts to go wrong.
In his attempt to connect with his daughter while delivering some difficult news, Walter stumbles into a weekend with Nic and her girl friends and inadvertently makes a mess of everything. And, really, from the opening scene, it’s no surprise. Walter’s life is its own kind of chaos: his cheating led to divorce, and now he has a child on the way with a self-absorbed girlfriend that he doesn’t even like.
Kim’s life, meanwhile, is just as messy. She’s traveling to Big Sur from her estranged mother’s funeral, and her car breaks down on the way. And because she knows all about Walter’s history before she even climbs into his car, the reception is chilly at best. And things just get more complicated from there.
Neither of these characters is especially likable—in fact, they can be pretty infuriating—and that can make for a difficult start to the movie. But once they arrive in Big Sur, everything changes. Walter is faced with all kinds of big surprises, starting when his daughter comes out to him in a big way. And he meets a bunch of eccentric personalities (like zoned-out hippie Moon, played by Lily Holleman). Fortunately, though, there’s Nic, the one stable character at the center of it all. She’s the film’s ray of sunshine—the one character who truly deserves the happiness that the people around her keep messing up.
In the midst of the ups and downs of these tricky relationships, Funny Story isn’t as funny as the title suggests, and the writing often feels somewhat clunky. But that’s the idea: that life is awkward and painful and difficult and sometimes, yes, funny, too.
Funny Story is far from a flawless dramedy. The characters can be frustrating, and their story is a mess of their own making. But if you enjoy movies about the untidiness of real life—of the journey to understand ourselves and others—you may enjoy getting to know these complicated characters.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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