It's Kind of a Funny Story

Comedy-dramas are a tricky business. You have to be sentimental but not sappy; funny but not frivolous. It's tough to veer between the light-hearted and the serious.

Indie filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck don't just take on this challenge with "It's Kind of a Funny Story"--they up the ante by setting the action in an inpatient facility for the mentally ill. Keir Gilchrist stars as Craig, a privileged teenager suffering from depression over girls and academic pressures. He admits himself to the facility and quickly learns that his problems don't compare to those of the other patients.

Boden and Fleck don't gloss over the patients' ailments, but they are at times able to show them in a mildly humorous light--no small feat. Their difficult balance is best embodied and executed by Zach Galifanakis as Bobby, a depressed patient with understated wit. After seeing Galifanakis ham it up in "The Hangover", it's nice to see him work the lower registers. He provides subtlety to a role that easily could have been played for bombast.

If Boden and Fleck pull all this off, why doesn't "It's Kind of a Funny Story" feel like a better movie? The biggest problem is the trap they've set for themselves. They certainly don't want to trivialize the patients' problems, but they also don't want to make a serious message movie on the order of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". They have to keep the humor relatively muted, but they also can't probe the emotional depths of the mentally ill. There aren't any uproarious moments of laughter here, and there aren't any unblinking looks at the abyss into which depression and other illnesses can sink you. They have to go halfway on both accounts.

There are other issues as well, principally related to the filmmakers' reliance on some Hollywood conventions. Problems are introduced and resolved in an overly pat way. Craig must of course have a love interest, though fortunately the tryst doesn't overwhelm the story.

Boden and Fleck also achieve mixed results with the fantasy and flashback sequences they employ. A tour through a city Craig draws set to bland hip-hop? No. An over-the-top karaoke rendition of "Under Pressure" by the patients? Yes.

Really, the title says it all. "It's Kind of a Funny Story". It could be worth watching. Maybe.