It's Kind of a Funny Story

It's Kind of a Funny Story
2010
Directed by: Anna Boden
Starring: Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifinakis

Watching this movie, a lot of thoughts ran through my head. Kind of how his head was. The main character's. Am I writing in fragmented sentences? Sorry, my thoughts are just kind of spilling out like a tipped over can of paint. You know, the kind that is impossible to clean up. When the can spills out, it seems that you are the only one that will ever have to deal with that paint spill. A movie about depression. No, a comedy. No, a dramedy that created a complete sense of unrealistic possibility that it actually made me upset.

Become depressed. Check yourself into a mental institution. Decide it's not for you. Get forced to stay for a week. Meet a beautiful girl. Fall in love. Have your life completely figured out in a matter of five days. Yeah, that's realistic. It sounds like a normal life flipped upside down by fantasy and wonder. Is this what we've come to? Fantasy, wonder. What are these words, and why do they sound so...stupid? No, redundant. We plague ourselves in this abstract society of falling in love and finding the true meaning in one hour and forty minutes. Is that all it really takes to find happiness?

Movies make us happy. Movies make us sad. They make us laugh. They make us cry. They make us scared, or angry, or anything from the above. What did this movie do? It lied. It created a sense of possibility that is nowhere near the realm of reality. Realm of reality. I like that. The possible exoneration of anything stressful. The main character had good points. After a certain age, life doesn't seem to matter anymore. It's all about the bills, the loans, the girls, the pressure of being successful.

Fine by me. True story actually. The antiquated realization of a depressed soul is divided in this movie. His character was not suicidal. He would not be in a mental hospital for any reason. Was he sad that his parents put too much pressure on him? Was he sad that his best friend was more smooth with ladies than he was? Sure. That's what made him depressed? No. The human brain gets depressed due to lack of stimulant. He was blaming his friends, his parents, his teachers, for his problems.

Grow up. Everyone has problems. And you know what? Those problems will never be solved in five days staying voluntarily in a mental hospital. The growing unrealistic possibilities of the movie are the flaw. The characters were fine. The outside stories were fine. Finding a happy medium between reality and fantasy seemed a little too difficult. Don't give people false hope. It'll probably just make them more depressed than your characters that get to run around the hospital like free birds.

Stars (out of 10): 6