It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010)

disgusting, overrated, pointless

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

I just...this movie confuses me. It's Kind of a Funny Story tells the story of Craig Gilman, a depressed sixteen year old. Craig decides to check himself into a psychiatric ward because he's suicidal. He realizes that he does not really want to die, but he can't help feeling that suicide is the only way to escape the immense pressure brought on by his parents, prep school, and high-achieving peers.At the hospital, Craig learns to cope with the help of a psychiatrist and some new, relatable friends. He even meets a love interest in the form of a sweet, quirky girl named Noelle. A truly heart-warming story. He stays about a week, and then he feels ready to resume taking anti-depressants and return to home and school. Good for Craig, right?It's a familiar story - a stressed kid struggling with depression during some of the most difficult years of a person's life. I find Craig's character to be authentic and relatable. He's confused, afraid, and initially unwilling to accept the fact that he is no better than any other individual in the psychiatric ward. As a former stressed high schooler (and a current college student in a very competitive environment), Craig makes sense to me. I hope everything worked out for him after he returned to his seemingly suffocating prep school.However, I can't help but feel irritated by the portrayal of the other characters in the psychiatric ward. Aside from Craig's closest friends Bobby and Noelle, the other patients are largely devoid of substance. They serve as mere tropes in Craig's story. Initially, Craig is clearly put off by his fellow residents. Fortunately, he eventually realizes his ignorance and comes to accept them for who they are, but as viewers, we never discover who these people really are beyond their various disabilities.Yes, the movie is a comedy, and the characters are designed to make people laugh. However, the only source of "humor" is in the various manifestations of disability and/or illness. There's something seriously wrong (and very un-funny) about this exploitation of struggles that are very real for an entire population of people, and truthfully, Craig's character is never fully integrated with these other individuals. The viewer always gets the sense that he is being portrayed as superior to them. In other words, the entire movie seems to be saying "Sure, Craig's got problems - he's depressed. But at least he's normal."I see no need to further elaborate on the many issues with this type of representation - it's self-explanatory. Making a clear attempt to hold Craig in a higher regard than his fellow patients is a disservice to the entire disabled community. It somehow suggests that perhaps if you're a teenager, or if you're white, or if you're male, then your mental disability or illness is less alienating than it is for others. I'm sure those involved in this production did not intend to send such a exclusionary message, but the subtext is impossible to miss. Craig is relatable if you come from a similar background, but if you're not like Craig? If you happen to identify more with one of the other characters? This movie has the clear potential to make you feel like your identity is little more than a spectacle for obnoxious ableist audiences.

I found this because it is an Emma Roberts, and to me it was, as with most of her stuff, worth finding. That definitely includes Nerve (2016), about kids playing an internet dare game.It's A Kind Of Funny Story is effective teens with problems re mental health. I have no idea how the fee paying USA system deals with the full range of that, but the UK has been underfunding this sector for some time so the National Health Service and education services are of limited help.This is a fun story that mostly manages to be sympathetic. Cuckoo's Nest seemed to set a precedent for including patients going AWOL and I wonder how those are intended to be understood by those who consider mental patients as dangerous? That is the aspect of the story that I personally would prefer to be other, to me it spoils the sympathetic view.My experience of mental health support is that it can help some, while being retrograde for many others. This exploration of those it can help feels useful for considering the wider situation. I consider this story to be filmic literature rather than a gripping yarn.

What did I just have to skip through to just get to the end and find out what happens? There are many problems with this whatever-shite-is, but the main issue is that it downplays mental illness and not only turns into a joke, it romanticizes it. It actually tries to make mental illness hip and trendy.Depression and other types of mental illness are very serious. Mental hospitals are also very serious. They're not little "vacations" as the vapid main character puts it. Serious depression isn't just something you "feel sometimes" as the main character's self-absorbed best friend puts it. Taking medication isn't cool as the other self-absorbed friend tries to imply.What is wrong with the people who made this junk?! And it's unrealistic from the get-go. What mental hospital admits an underage kid without his parents' consent? Where does that exist? Then it just lets mental patients stroll in and out of the ward? RUN??? One of the things one learns when one goes to a psych ward is: DON'T RUN.GARBAGE.And the color palette? Everything has to be muted neutrals or some pretentious crap? Get over yourselves.This "movie" needs to be burned.

Have now seen several films with her in them, and although none are among the all time greats, she does fairly well in all of them (although the characters have required few acting demands), each have been good little works. This is another in that same category.. the script holds no surprises and the ending is straightforward and totally expected. But the overall acting is solid and the majority of viewers should come away feeling positive. One of the real pluses (in addition to Emma) is the musical score.. it's very diverse and one of the best for a small indie film. I stopped several times to find out what was playing. It's a solid seven of ten production.