It's Kind of a Funny Story

What's up guys, I'm back and it hasn't been months of waiting. Whoo! Also, I'm going to officially try to write a new post every Tuesday. Just announcing that so y'all can yell at me if I start slacking off.

So today, I will be reviewing a little movie called It's Kind of a Funny Story, based off the book with the same title, which is about a boy who checks himself into the hospital's psychiatric ward after having suicidal thoughts. He has no background trauma or terrible circumstances; he is simply depressed. He's in one of NYC's top high schools and is in the middle of writing an application to a prestigious program that is giving him a lot of stress and making him think about his future in a very pessimistic way. In the end, (spoiler alert of course), he makes friends with the people at the psych ward who teach him that his life isn't so bad compared with theirs, and that he has enough control over his life to be happier, inspiring him to write a book and help other teens like himself. He also meets a girl and they start dating at the end of the movie, though that one didn't need a spoiler alert.

Fun fact: The author of the book, Ned Vizzini, wrote two episodes of Teen Wolf and co-wrote a book with Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter movies and Home Alone. The more ya know.

The cinematography in this movie was unique, but scattered. There's a theme of Craig's illustrated "brain maps" that plays into a couple of short animated scenes when he discovers his love for art, but then there's also a scene with still images and narration here, shaky cam with saturated color there... I feel like these are all techniques that can be found in separate movies one at a time, making this feel like a mish-mash of experimental editing, which looked cool but ended up looking like a lot of people worked on this editing. The editing in these separate scenes reminded me of Juno, Super 8, and Mean Girls, which, as you can probably imagine, was confusing.

The story for this film was solid. It was good, even. The characters were all well-developed, and most of the actors portrayed them well, and the conclusion was your typical happy-go-lucky everything worked out ending. It just felt like something was lacking, like all of the puzzle pieces fit too perfectly. I've heard it from other people too -- it's difficult to get emotionally involved in this story. The story ironically felt unrealistic, which would make no sense considering the context: Author Vizzini spent five days in the adult psychiatric ward just like the main character, Craig, and claims that "It's Kind of a Funny Story was based on my real life and is 85% true." For the purposes of this review, I will be considering the value of the storytelling rather than the author's presumed life. It also adds a happier note to the ending of the story if it remains a work of fiction that is not completely based on Vizzini's life; Vizzini unfortunately committed suicide December 2013.

There's a bit of dramatic irony involved (depending on how much you sympathize with Craig) when Craig's psychiatrist quotes the "Serenity Prayer," saying, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." Craig is immediately confused and thrown off at first, while this is clearly pointing toward his overabundant self-pity that gets in the way of the healing he came to 3 North for. It's hard to see the good in everything when you look toward unchangeable external forces to rule your mood. In the end, he's guided by his fellow patient and friend Bobby, who shows him that his life is worth living and the stress he is feeling is under his own control.

I honestly think that this is an exaggerated version of what happens to a lot of teens or pre-teens. Some people have a period of time in their life when they can't or don't see that their situation is not nearly as bad as it could be, and until they have something else to compare their life to, it can seem as if the world is ending. To clarify, I am not talking about people with clinical depression but rather people like Craig's friends in the film who talked about sometimes having "that depression thing." While it's normal to have a wide range of emotions that do reach some pretty low points, it does not mean that everyone "sometimes" has "that depression thing." I accept the word "depressed" as a valid adjective for a feeling that everyone can get because of its common use, but depression itself is something entirely different. Sorry, tangent. Anyway, the thing is, it's ok to have that realization when you find out that your life isn't so bad and you may have been overdramatic about something. It's part of growing up, and hell, if it doesn't happen when you're an adult, then you're either an extremely happy and optimistic person (congrats) or you learned something new that day. I'd say that's a good thing. Sorry, more tangents. Moving on.

I honestly have to say I don't recommend this movie. It's good, but not great. A lot of Ned Vizzini's work has been criticized for just this, which I feel bad about, but honestly, there are better movies out there. Go watch American Hustle (if you haven't already); I'm reviewing it for next week and according to some extremely prestigious awards, it's supposedly pretty good. I must warn you beforehand -- I am indeed a Jennifer Lawrence fan so there may be bias.

I apologize if this post was chaotic. If Craig were to draw a brain map for me right now, it'd be just as scattered as everything else about this post. It's finals week here, so forgive me, damn it.

Send me movie recommendations! Nothing is going to stop me from watching American Hustle before next Tuesday, but I'll watch whatever you have for me after that! :)