Funny Ha Ha (2002) User Reviews

Boston... Land of the angry brunettes

[deancapetanelis · 6/10 · 9 September 2005]

Sitting through this movie is just like the tedium of actually trying to find a date in Boston. This movie, much like most of the city of Boston is populated by men who can't find a date and the women who don't want to date them. So OK, the director basically held a mirror up to my early 20's when I was that underemployed guy sleeping on the floor on a foam pad with my girlfriend in that little Queensbury Street studio apartment. So OK it really is not a very forgiving city when you're single and lonely. Unfortunately in this film there is no real story worth caring about. Some shallow people do shallow things hoping no one notices how shallow they are by punctuating every movement with witty pseudo-intellectualism. Again, just like living in Boston. So for that I applaud the director. He really captured the Hub at its grittiest. That and the film is so refreshingly free of production values. It's like looking at old home movies of people you once cared about but have since outgrown.

Good "slice-of-life" movie, but is it interesting?

[kolyanbogie · 5/10 · 22 September 2006]

Looking like a documentary, this movie captures well life at the age of the characters, that I remember when I was that age: direction-less and insecure. The problem is, a glimpse into people's personal lives aren't necessarily interesting, and I wanted more to happen or for the story to be more interesting. I also wondered why characters we saw a lot of in the beginning of the movie, simply disappeared with no explanation. Alex's unexpected marriage was never explained, nor did Marnie seem to try to find out how this marriage came about. In keeping with the theme of a segment of someone's life snipped out randomly and put on film, the ending provided no resolution to anything, but I felt it could have been less abrupt and arbitrary.

A show about nothing.....

[MarieGabrielle · 5/10 · 2 September 2006]

where have we heard this before? Ah yes, Woody Allen on down to his character actor acquaintance Larry David (creator of Seinfeld), etc...., etc.... Yes, it was once a novel idea. In 1979.

Has anyone who watched this ever seen Woody Allen's "Manhattan"? you will be interested in the parallels.

This was filmed primarily in Allston and Cambridge, and I agree with an early reviewer, who stated that a mirror image of his own single life there was reflected. Imagine each person living in The Back Bay or South End with a similar story. After all everyone has experienced the void of dating, working in Boston,(or any metro area city) and going home alone on your birthday. Not exactly earth shattering.

Kate Dollenmayer is not bad as the primary character, but Andrew Bujalski has so many Allen-like mannerisms, it is almost embarrassing to watch. The only members of the audience who will not pick this out would have to be 17 years old, at most.

There are a few decent scenes, the awkwardness Kate feels with an old boyfriend, the vacuous conversation at a keg party, but really; is this considered different?. If it is, then next time you or I go to the supermarket we should tag along someone with a handy cam, start a conversation, and we too would be considered a writer/director.

Disappointing, but has its moments

[alexduffy2000 · 19 June 2003]

I saw "Funny Ha Ha" at the IFP LA Film Festival on June 18, 2003. It's an attempt at naturalistic filmmaking. It has its moments, but the movie intentionally has no plot, and for some reason this works against the film (ha ha). "Life has no plot" is the theme, but they picked a life that's not too interesting, the life of "Marnie" played by Kate Dollenmayer. Incidently, in real life she is or was the roommate of the director (Bujalski), and they are both graduate film students. So you have the educated elite portraying what they think "real life" is all about.

Since is was a film festival, I got to ask the director (Andrew Bujalski) about the ending (no spoiler here). I found the ending quite disappointing, but he (and others in the audience) seemed to find the ending satisfactory since the end wasn't "pat." His explanation of the low-budget process of making the movie, and his decision to film it on 16mm film in Boston were actually more interesting than the movie itself.

The characters in this film are white college graduates who are happy or unhappy with their lives after graduation. It's hard to root for any of them, they basically come across as a whiny elite who live in nice apartments and complain about their shallow lives... it's pretty forgetable. Bujalski is quite skilled as both an actor and a director, but he needs a more compelling story to tell, where we actually care about what happens in the next scene.

a mellow slice of life dramedy

[framptonhollis · 7/10 · 21 December 2017]

Films like this naturally annoy and disappoint many people, and it isn't hard for me to see why. This movie is plotless, not much really happens, and the ending is not an ending at all, if anything it is an anti-ending, which I found fitting. There is no real way to conclude this film unless all the main characters die in some way, or something much bigger happens to them, but anything like that at all would be totally out of place here. The point of this film is to depict the daily lives of some characters, dig deep into their emotions and thoughts, and then carelessly shrug as the film cuts to a solid black that feels especially opaque considering how seemingly random it is. The movie just ends in the middle of a scene that could easily have gone on for another few minutes, and led into some other scene which would then lead to yet another. The film has no real beginning, either. It opens up on a quick, insignificant little moment as the main character drunkenly looks around a tattoo shop and talks with the tattooist for a couple of minutes and he explains why he doesn't give tattoos to drunk people and then the scene kind of rambles off into termination. For me, the movie was very interesting and enjoyable to watch. The comedy was fittingly mild and usually rather uncomfortable, the atmosphere was lifelike but interesting, the main character was good company to be around, and those around her were fascinating in their own ways. The movie has emotion, but it also has moments of total dullness. It's entertaining, but also kind of boring, which doesn't make any sense but it's true anyway. It's a witty movie partially about relationships or lack of relationships, and it handles things with a sharp, and sometimes excruciatingly awkward, sense of humor as well as slight sorrow.

winning independent feature

[Buddy-51 · 7/10 · 16 December 2006]

First time filmmaker Andrew Bujalski's extremely low-budget feature "Funny Ha Ha" has many of the hallmarks of an early John Cassavetes film: grainy camera-work, minimalist storytelling, and naturalistic, ad lib performances.

Bujalski's cast of characters is made up entirely of white urban youth in their early to mid 20's - that awkward period in life after an individual has finished college yet before he has moved on to building his own career and family. Given what appears to be their first real taste of freedom and independence, the characters do little but sit around, get drunk, and talk about their romantic relationships, but Bujalski observes all this without hysteria and judgment, thereby lending the film the aura of real life being caught on film. The focal point is an attractive young woman named Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) who drinks a bit too much, seems vaguely directionless and lacking in energy, and is somewhat inexperienced in the ways of love, but who, nevertheless, seems reasonably well grounded and knows her own limits as a person.

"Funny Ha Ha," despite its occasional raggedness and self-indulgence, is blessedly free of contrivance and melodramatics. These may not be the most goal-oriented or socially-conscious youth we've ever encountered in the movies, but neither are they the most troubled or self-destructive. They seem like pretty ordinary kids living in the moment and only vaguely aware that there's a world outside of themselves that they are destined to become a part of in the very near future.

The beauty of the dialogue rests in its ability to capture with uncanny accuracy the way people in the real world actually speak. The characters interact in ways that are genuine and believable, and life just seems to be unfolding as we watch it on screen. This is due in small measure to the fine performances from a cast of virtual unknowns who know how to appear relaxed, honest and natural in front of the camera.

With its improvisational and off-the-cuff film-making style and its abrupt, the-camera-just-ran-out-of-film ending, "Funny Ha Ha" makes us feel as if we are eavesdropping on the daily lives of a handful of relative strangers. Lucky for us, they turn out to be people in whom we can see something of ourselves reflected, and with whom we enjoy spending our time.

definitely worth seeing

[liawau87 · 7/10 · 3 May 2006]

Before I saw this movie, the only thing I heard was that there was no real plot line and that I would hate the major characters because of their inability to move on from their irresponsible adolescent lives, or something to that effect. After viewing the film, I can say that nothing is further from the truth. I sympathized with most of the characters, especially Marnie. She is unhappy with her life, but not in an over-dramatic depressing way, but rather a more realistic "nothing is changing and I am doing the same old stuff" kind of way. Her repeated but failed attempts to stimulate some kind of change was something I related to.

I also really appreciated the movie's almost home video-like quality. The movie is about what life is really like, and I think the style could not have been more appropriate. There are some moments when the lack of effects or music really makes the emotional impact that much harder, albeit subtler.

Of course, not everyone will appreciate this movie. I think in some ways viewers have to be able to relate the situations and characters and attitudes of the characters to their own lives in order to appreciate it fully. If your life is constantly exciting and never awkward or seemingly aimless, you may not enjoy it as much as I did.

Whiny, unhappy people

[paul2001sw-1 · 5/10 · 15 March 2008]

An ultra-low budget film about aimless twenty-somethings wasting their lives brings to mind Richard Lindlater's 'Slacker'; and while Andrew Bujalski's film lacks that movie's experimental formlessness, it does share something of the same mood. The cinematography has the feel of a super-eight home movie; but the piece is acutely observed and feels real throughout. Unfortuantly, it's just not that interesting, in part because its characters just aren't that interesting, and in a sense this isn't accidental; their directionless existence owes much to the fact that they simply haven't lived enough to have anything to care about, anything to say. And while there should be a profound sadness underpinning this, and some sociological analysis, the film never seems to scrape below its surface of whiny, unhappy people. You wouldn't dislike these people in real life, but if they have any notable attributes, they're not on display, and you wouldn't go out of your way to spend time in their company. But what's true of the characters is sadly also true of the film that contains them.

Deserves more than one sitting

[sdfsdl89 · 10/10 · 26 July 2005]

It took me a couple of hours after I finished watching "Funny Ha Ha" to realize that I'd seen a terrific movie. It raises so many little questions and offers so many quiet insights that one sitting isn't enough. While its title might fit one of those saccharine studio "youth" pictures where Reese Witherspoon lands her dream job/dream guy by being relentlessly spunky and charming, it's actually the perfect antidote to that sort of thing.

This film examines the awkward period after college and before reality pounces. It isn't neatly plotted, but feels as gawky and half-formed as its post-adolescent characters. It doesn't quite know what to say next, and when it does latch on to an idea it usually evaporates before reaching a conclusion. It looks thrift-shoppy, with grainy photography and a lighting scheme that owes more to Home Depot than the American Society of Cinematographers. It's shot in cruddy apartments and tacky offices.

Writer/director Andrew Bujalski films his shaggy-dog story in a stammering, hesitant style that fits perfectly with his protagonists. It's a wonderfully accurate portrait of aimless youth, which movies love to celebrate as freedom and adventure, but which is actually pretty boring most of the time.

Marnie, the 23-year-old central character -- let's be charitable and call her the heroine -- doesn't have a firm idea of who she is, where she's going or what she hopes for from life. She keeps a notebook full of self-improvement initiatives such as "Go to museum" and "Spend more time outside." She's a slacker's slacker stuck in a quarter-life crisis, and one of the best-rendered characters I've seen in an American movie since "Sideways." The lanky Kate Dollenmayer is wonderful as Marnie, giving her inarticulate dialogue the ring of everyday speech. A nonprofessional actress, she was one of the animators on Richard Linklater's "Waking Life," and she fits perfectly into that appealing, eccentric universe. Marnie can't express a thought without backing up and approaching it several times. Observing her conversations is like watching someone learn to parallel-park.

Marnie is at loose ends, temping and hanging out with old school chums, but unable to commit to any decision that would move her life forward. When she's buzzed, she visits a tattoo parlor, but can't decide whether she wants a geometrical design or a cow. The patient owner eases her out the door.

In a twisted come-on line, she tells an available fellow at a party that she thought about becoming a nun, but hasn't been "completely chaste." Her romantic sights are mainly set on Alex (Christian Rudder), who continually half-flirts with her before dancing away. Still, she claims to have a boyfriend when a drab co-worker (Bujalski) asks her out. They have a series of non-dates, cringe-inducing affairs in which polite chat can't disguise the lack of a spark between them.

Alex has a couple of coffee dates with Marnie, too, and she comes alive in his presence, revealing a goofy sense of humor and confidence she can't tap into under other circumstances. Unfortunately, he's just stringing her along. The film builds to a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment when Marnie sees him in a new light.

"Funny Ha Ha" will exasperate mainstream moviegoers, but patient viewers will find it insightful and funny and sad. It's destined to have a long life in many a video store's "cult-classics" section.

Are We There Yet?

[valis1949 · 7/10 · 26 February 2009]

FUNNY HA HA is a meandering, whimsical look at Echo Boomers. Adult Life hasn't taken hold, direction seems clear, yet where is the forward momentum? I doubt very seriously if people within this age group would identify with this representation. I think that the film works better for people who are much younger, or decades and decades older. Teenagers might envy the leisure time and absence of adult responsibility depicted in the film, and older folks might view it through the lens of rosy nostalgia. The film has a very Independent look, and is not without a certain elemental charm. However, it is certainly not a definitive statement, but maybe that was the point.

the joke's on us

[scrybbler · 4/10 · 25 February 2009]

This seemed to be just the kind of movie I enjoy, but turned out to be a shell of the same.

The director gets some things right, like his choice of star and some of the scene pacing. Dialog and character interactions breathe properly; they're languid and yet vaporous, as some other reviewers have said.

Too bad they all come to nothing. Marnie's a vacuous amalgam, not a character; she's the camera, not a human being. Encounters and relationships don't build through sequence or consequence; almost nothing happens that informs or affects a subsequent scene. Through her, we see the other characters, who are almost universally portrayed by much lesser actors. There's no character arc; the script feels self-indulgent and ultimately trivial. The entire movie is Marnie amused, Marnie bemused, Marnie bored... audience bored.

Bujalski had the pieces to make a remarkable film, but instead he never got the transmission out of neutral.

A haunting original

[email3005 · 10/10 · 22 July 2005]

The unabashedly teensy-budgeted Funny Ha Ha, written and directed by Andrew Bujalski, is actually more like Funny Strange—or even Funny Unsettling. You might be tempted to walk out in the first 20 minutes, which seem artless and aimless: not very fascinating people making not very fascinating small talk in drab settings. The by-default protagonist, Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer), is a listless 23-year-old between jobs and quietly smitten with an old friend, Alex (Christian Rudder), who has just broken up with his girlfriend. Does Alex like her? Other friends, among them Alex's sister, don't quite know. Alex, it seems, doesn't quite know. Marnie doesn't communicate her affections very forcefully. In fact, she does nothing very forcefully. She drinks a little at parties, she lies around, she hangs out with laid-back friends, and she floats.

Floating, indecision, the indefinite: This is the gray arena of Funny Ha Ha. The surprise is how the movie comes together and gets under your skin before you even know why you should give a damn. What seems improvised and random turns out to be controlled, at times cunningly shaped, and the surface of nonsequiturs and random shrugs conceals fairly intense emotions—the emotions of self-consciously cool, easy, inarticulate people afraid to pin anything down. The nonaction is set (in what appears to be Cambridge, Boston, and Somerville) in midsummer and has a midsummer formlessness—an extension of the kind of languor you feel in those hazy dog days before the sudden hardness and definition of fall.

Dollenmayer becomes more and more fun to read. A young woman with long limbs and sleepy eyes on a big, open face, she's just the sort of beauty whose self-effacing vibe would make her less than magnetic to really handsome guys and madly irresistible to nerds—who think that maybe, just maybe, they'd have a shot. The one she attracts is played by the director, who makes himself look very unprepossessing, indeed. In fact, he's cringe-worthy. The character he plays, Mitchell, tries to make a virtue of his self-deprecation: Loathing himself is obviously all he has to think about. He's so unappealing that it really would be a sign of self-disrespect for Marnie to go to bed with him. Fortunately, he's too lame even to press his case. But she'd be no better off with adorable Alex, whose boneless diffidence seems increasingly selfish and calculated.

Funny Ha Ha is a bit of a stunt. How can intelligent people, even slackers, be this vaporous? No one talks about life, the world, politics, music, movies—anything concrete. But out of this vaporousness, and within the narrow parameters he has set, Bujalski has made an indelible film...

by David Edelstein, Slate.com

Nary a cell phone nor a Twitter account in sight for these young adults, as strained communication and pained interaction takes centre stage.

[johnnyboyz · 6/10 · 20 April 2013]

If anything, Funny Ha Ha has surely set some sort of record in regards to the number of times a character in a film says that of either: "I don't know..." or "...I mean". The people in this film appear to be on some sort of delay, as if the things they're hearing from those directly in front of them are being relayed via satellite before they actually reach the ears of the beholder. Often, by the time someone has said something, it often sounds as if the person to whom they are speaking have just about replied to the prior remark. The film is an amateur piece shot on 16mm and on locations around the American city of Boston, a project both written and directed by Andrew Bujalski. It is a film peppered with exchanges of this ilk; a film depicting young adults aged between 18 and about 25 who can pass a driving test and be entrusted with answering phone calls at a business' reception, but whose emotions and ability to express themselves to their own demographic arrives with some difficulty.

Funny Ha Ha follows a young woman named Marnie (Dollenmayer), someone out of further education and knocking about looking to garner a partner; a job and do something about her fondness for drinking, which may or may not extent to maintaining such a habit. The girl is so open to options that, in what appears to be her most glorious moment of confusion in a film that carries with it a heavy air of spiralling in and out of everywhere at a fantastic rate, she even contemplates becoming a nun. Marnie has just been fired from a job; likewise in the film's key stakes, she has been hurt in the past by a relationship thus is wary of getting into a new one, in spite of having the meek desire to do so. We follow her ambling and stumbling into situations and scenarios. One of her friends is Rachel (Schaper), and she listens to what Marnie has to say – later they both end up in a restaurant with a larger network of Rachel's friends. Things don't seem to be going anywhere, less so in Marine's existence right now.

There is a boy called Alex (Rudder), who Marnie likes – a cocksure kid who wears jeans and enjoys his Nike trainers so much that he keeps them on indoors when lying on is bed. Alex keeps bad company; Marnie likes him for what appears to be this renegade image, but she's too good for him in spite of this fondness. Another boy is Mitchell, the polar opposite to Alex in that he's actually quite nice, but is too much of a nerd to be good enough for Marnie. Round and round it goes. Writer/director Bujalski casts himself as Mitchell, in what is a refreshing instance of someone in control casting themselves in an unflattering role: this is no ego trip, this is film making that's trying to be as honest as possible. After things break down with Alex, a lesser film might've just dropped her into a relationship with Mitchell because he's all that's left and audiences demand closure.

The film has this sense to it that everything just comes about by accident, as if those producing it are making it up as they go along. To this extent, the film is refreshing in its immense amount of change to the usual proceedings of depicting a young love triangle. I read the film is considered a part of the "mumblecore" movement, an American invention born out of the surge in independent American cinema of the late 1980s/early 1990s, when a series of American films won big in places such as Cannes in consecutive years and induced a number of American directors still producing today, as well as things of a more hardened realism - namely something like Dogme 95. This is not the film setting out to be the antithesis to an American blockbuster, it just so happens to be such a thing. It carries with it the traits of what might be considered a pretentious film, namely the long takes and the emphasis on the same thing over and over, but this is a long way from something like "Funny Games", whose drawn out shots and repetition of its thesis through a series of often uncomfortable sequences, for some, had it cross a proverbial line.

It's important, however, to note that for its air of originality, as well as its general aesthetic that can have the power to blind people into thinking they're seeing something better than what they are, the film has a very simple idea at its core. This is not the first film about young people of this demographic, nor is it the first about the relationships young people share with one another. For a film to be as striking in its naturality as Funny Ha Ha is, and regardless of what people think of that, it does at least get the most important thing right in its observations on life and existence at this age: the one who you love more than anyone else is the one whom you're never destined to be with, whereas the one who seems to like you more than anyone else just cannot cut it in the marital stakes when lined up beside you. There is an eerie authenticity to the film's proceedings, but an honest one.

uff da

[bbojojo99 · 1/10 · 29 December 2004]

I knew sort of what to expect when I read that this movie was a character study...but oh, how bland. If it is a MOVIE, then I think a movie should have to contain more elements to qualify as such. Then again I am not a film student--nor have I ever professed to be one--so perhaps my opinion is not important. I do not know many people who are like the ones in the movie, so I cannot relate as some commenter's did here ("Sooooo familiar") Eh?! Never met such a bunch of indirect hooligans as the many of the Stuttery McGees that were in this flick. "Um..Eh...I didn't mean...Uhh...Maybe...Sorry...I dunno whatever". How hard is to say "Dude. You're standing on my face!" or "No Mitchell, I don't really think you are my type." Frustrating to watch, is really all I can say.

!

Somewhat funny but not as much Ha Ha.

[vladgri · 19 June 2003]

Very slooooow... You'll probably have a couple of smiles but you won't be able to stop checking your watch and wondering when it is going to end. Don't waste your time unless you're really deep into independent movies.

#GenerationScrewed

[ASuiGeneris · 6/10 · 22 September 2018]

Funny Ha Ha (2002) Director: Andrew Bujalski Watched: 9/20/18 Rating: 6/10

First mumblecore film Not the first nor best for me- It's Funny No No. Mundane taken past limit, Sudden mid-scene end galling.

Marnie is perfect With her nuanced performance; True heartfelt awkward Somehow strangely riveting; Why do we yearn to grow up?

#Somonka #PoemReview #Mumblecore #LostPostGrads

Doesn't fall prey to conventions, but we wish it would've enabled interest and progression

[StevePulaski · 6/10 · 17 August 2012]

Andrew Bujalski's Funny Ha Ha was not only the directorial debut of the man himself, who seems destined for more sufficient projects, but was also the pioneering film for the proclaimed "mumblecore movement." Mumblecore is defined by a film that has an ultra-low budget, very cheap production values, is shot on an inexpensive camera, utilizes usually first-time talents, and has a script that is or either mirrors improvisation. Faithful readers will note that I'm a big fan of the genre and recently strolled through the colorfully articulate filmography of the Duplass brothers, Jay and Mark. I thought I knew mumblecore, but it turns out, I hadn't paid a visit to the godfather of the genre, Bujalski.

The film follows a directionless girl named Marnie (Katie Dollenmayer), a recent college-grad in her twenties lumbering around the bitter streets of Boston, looking for a stable job and steady companionship. She is looking for stability in a world where everything is wobbly and unbalanced. While she is desperately trying to keep her life on the mature track, she winds up frequenting parties, hanging out with loser friends, and drinking an unbelievable amount. This is the sole reason why she doesn't carry a particularly close relationship with any of her friends in the film and this becomes the film's primary focus throughout this ninety minute journey.

A film only ninety minutes in length only feels like a journey when it is equipped with methodical pacing and conservative energy. I was instantly reminded of Richard Linklater's lovably different film Slacker, which was his directorial debut in 1991. Slacker was an experimental film that lacked form, much like this picture, and was a simple day-in-the-life examination of not characters but a college town in Texas. The camera would focus on a specific person, have them ramble to a friend or a regular pedestrian for a few minutes, before completely panning over to someone different in the same location. It was a soothing and effective picture that worked not only because of its ingenious idea, but because of its approach, which was careful never to ostracize these characters as empty caricatures but showing people that a "slacker" is someone who knows what they want to do and how they want to do it and that they refuse to conform to things that will not better them in the slightest. The more I think about it, the more I'm truly wowed and captivated by that film.

Funny Ha Ha, unfortunately, takes a more vacuous and shallow approach to the subject of impressionable collegians. While we are not burdened with these characters or even find them intolerable in the slightest, we don't particularly find them as interesting nor good people to focus on for ninety minutes. Characters disappear and reappear in a form of complete randomness, dialog is exchanged sometimes meaningfully, unpredictably, and haphazardly, and more often than not, these people have really no insights worth exploring or thoughts worth hearing. Linklater's Slacker was a carefully constructed film; one that made sure its characters weren't empty or vacant of personalities, even though we only saw them for such a brief amount of time. I'll never know how, but Linklater managed to almost develop one person in a time frame of less than five minutes and some films don't seem to develop the main character in the frame of ninety minutes or more.

If the characters, particularly Marnie, had observant little things to say about the world, pleasant insights, or even witty parables with whimsy and craft, we'd have something going here. But she doesn't. And neither do the other characters. The one I would've liked to see more of was Bujalski's Mitchell, who appears rather late in the picture. He seems to have both acting and directing under his belt, and I can see him making a film I'll label "brilliant" in "x" number of years.

The film is shot on 16mm, fully equipped with scratchy and somewhat distorted audio and actors that perfectly define the word "amateur." This works in the film's favor, because it doesn't seem to fall prey to conventions in any way. What doesn't is the film's script, which seems stuck in a trance where nothing happens almost because someone is eerily afraid of progression.

Starring: Kate Dollenmayer, Mark Herlehy, Christian Rudder, Jennifer L. Schaper, Myles Paige, Marshall Lewy, and Andrew Bujalski. Directed by: Andrew Bujalski.

This made "Bio-Dome" look like Raging Bull

[NV2Texas · 1/10 · 27 June 2005]

Who goes around throwing beer off a balcony when trying to impress a girl? Who thinks that playing with coffee creamer is a laugh riot? Who sits on the grass to eat a crappy lunch and figures it's OK to make fun of people playing with a frisbee? Who speaks and acts like these people? I went to college in Austin and have been around my fair share of whack jobs but the writer/director who came up with these characters is really reaching. The absolute worst screenplay and acting I have ever seen in any film.

I've seen much better work from 6th graders on a class project with a VHS cam. This film should never have seen the cinema. Its distribution is a testament to the fact that anything can and will be made and marketed. Absolutely dreadful.

Superb dialog, wonderful characters, well worth the time

[alanjj · 8/10 · 20 December 2004]

the inarticulateness of real people is so plain in this pic. The director either has a wonderful ear for the stutters and evasions of everyday conversation, or the dialog was totally improvised, or he just kept a tape recorder rolling as real people said real things and, uh, you know, sorta, you know, transcribed the tape. Within the context of inarticulateness, two lead characters, Marnie and Alex, come off as incredibly funny, but absolutely cannot say how much they adore each other, even when Alex does the inexplicable.

The TiVo summary says that the movie is about a girl who dates a nerd, but that is a bit of a subplot. If I read my credits correctly, the nerd is played by the director, which then turns this film into an obviously autobiographical work on the director's frustrations, his inability to not be able to articulate. But the movie is extremely articulate, funny, engaging. I tend (as a committed homo) to get most attached to lead men in movies about teens (well, 20s in this case), and Alex is a charmer. But Marnie is absolutely lovable, and perfectly cast. The director, playing Mitchell (I think), is great at portraying the amazement of a not-so-attractive guy who meets a girl who does not have a boyfriend, and seems maybe sorta kinda to like him.

All through, I thought this was from the slacker/Austin school of film, but it was a surprise to find that it was set in Allston, MA. It has a good look and feel for any-college-town, USA.

Definitely worth one's time, and I love the total indecisiveness of the plot--it's a confusing time.

Can't remember ever seeing a worse film

[thecharliefarm · 1/10 · 6 August 2006]

This was a god awful film. I'm struggling to come up with the words to explain how much I hated this film, I'm struggling as much as the characters did to come up with anything remotely interesting to say. You might think "life is like that, life is all about awkward pauses and situations and apologies", and you're right... but we don't put them on film for chrissake! it was as though the most interesting and thoughtful parts of their conversations were removed and we only got to see what remained. The acting is appalling, the direction is disgraceful, there was no evidence of a script and it appeared that each scene was only shot once, no second takes. I saw it the Melbourne International Film Festival and for the record, no less than 30-40 people walked out 2/3 of the way through.

I honestly felt like I'd been taken for a ride, this movie is so bad it feels like one big practical joke on the viewer.

best movie of the year

[gd772323 · 10/10 · 26 July 2005]

Not the laugh riot its title suggests, this gently humorous indie stars Kate Dollenmayer as a recent college grad who's drifting and stumbling into adulthood. Maybe it's all her partying with alumni buds. Or the fact that she's still crushing on friend Christian Rudder, who's just not that into her. Or because she was recently fired while asking for a raise. Bummer. What's a mopey, aimless chick to do? Dollenmayer dives into the temp pool and catches the eye of nervous doofus Andrew Bujalski (who wrote and directed this). The painfully earnest guy tries his clumsy best, but the spurned nerd can't win more than her friendship. Despite its student-film look and hesitant start, this low-budget flick definitely grows on you, as do its awkward characters and their, like, we don't know, stuttered but kinda endearing, um, slacker-speak. Ha Ha is an honest portrait of twentysomething dating--and one with lots of heart.

I hated this movie

[buzzbruin · 1/10 · 9 June 2005]

This movie should be shown to all film students as the perfect example of a bad movie. Although20 somethings might understand this movie it still seems bad to me, There is no explanation of any of the characters, background, family ambitions etc. The whole movie seems improv and BAD improv at that. The word amateur comes to mind with regard to the lackof a script, motivation of the characters. The whole movies is aimless, a mess photographically and absolutely excruciating to sit through.I have to care about people in an art form whether a movie, a play, or a book.I couldn't care less about these people. I have hired college students and 20 somethings for 25 years and never, ever met a single one as shallow, hopless and miserable as these people.

Maybe I'M too simple

[jeeezmaaan · 15 April 2004]

I got dragged to see this movie by a friend who knows the director and several of the people in the movie. I guess I didn't have high expectations for it, but it came through nicely. I still don't understand what the title has to do with the movie, I didn't find it really funny, just sweet. I agree that it's a movie not about plot or even characters, but about moments. I kept thinking, "how many times have I been in one of these situations, talking about a relationship or my feelings with someone... how many times have i been on either side of this conversation. I've been this person, and I've been that person too." it was interesting. I really liked it. like I said, it wasn't that funny but it didn't try to be. It was nice to just watch it and soak up the simplicity and not watch some movie that tried to do all of your thinking for you.

Fair so so

[Billybob-Shatner · 4/10 · 30 May 2006]

After months of hearing how terrible this movie was, I was pleasantly surprised I didn't hate it. At all. Can't say I liked it, but I can see the director having a future in the industry if he plays his cards right.

The library that I work at purchased a copy of the movie based on a couple of positive reviews it received. Well, the movie might have played well for some very open minded critics, but the mainstream Americans I talked to purely hated it. And I can see why. It's amateurishly photographed (everything's easy to see and in focus so I'm not going to knock it much in that department), it's not laugh out loud funny, the plot is nominal, the dialog borders on being inarticulate, the characters aren't particularly likable, and it lacks conclusion.

But, having seen it, what it does have going for it, is that a fair deal of it does feel very real and down to earth. I was happy to see that most of the characters weren't the typical simplistic sex obsessed of comedies geared to this age range... It had a certain charm for all its subtly and I thought many of the performances worked well enough. That being said, this really isn't for everybody.

I'd dare say it's for a very small crowd. If you're a fan of Jarmush, then I'd take a chance on this. If not, know what you're getting into.

like, uh, great

[farueri90 · 10/10 · 26 July 2005]

So, it's like ... you know, like, when you're just out of college and ... and you, like, really don't want to move back home with your parents and you try to ... I don't know ... make a life of your own, and it's just so ... well, it's all in this indie movie about this girl, OK? And her name is Marnie (Kate Dollenmayer) and she's bummed because ... well, first, she's 23 years old, real cute and smart and stuff. But she's not bummed by all that. She's bummed because she really likes this guy Alex (Christian Rudder from the Bishop Allen rock band). But, like, Alex doesn't like her in the same way. I mean, he likes her as a friend, OK? But not, like, the way Marnie really, really likes Alex ... OK, so, like, anyway, Marnie doesn't know what to do and her friends are all, like trying to help her out, even though they keep giving her too much to drink, and every time she drinks, she does dumb stuff like going to a tattoo parlor or kissing a guy she hardly knows. And then there's this other guy she meets at her temp job, a borderline loser named Mitchell (the movie's writer-director Andrew Bujalski), who really wants to go out with Marnie. Which he does, but only after Marnie says she has a boyfriend, even though she doesn't. And she also knows that Alex just got married, spur-of-the-moment, with an ex-girlfriend ... It's just, like ... well, a lot like real life for 20-somethings. And Bujalski's raw, but tender first feature captures the whole bittersweet tangle of half-digested emotions and half-finished sentences with sympathy and poise.