When Owen Kline was barely a teenager, he starred in one of the greatest coming-of-age movies of all time, Noah Baumbach’s film The Squid and the Whale. Playing the brother of Jesse Eisenberg’s character and the son of Jeff Bridges and Laura Linney’s, Kline was understandably overshadowed by the immense talent around him. Nearly two decades later (after a slew of odd short films and comic strips, and assisting the Safdie brothers), he’s back with his own coming-of-age dramedy, writing and directing the uncomfortably humorous, fascinating film Funny Pages.
The great new A24 movie Funny Pages feels like Terry Zwigoff directed an Art Spiegelman comic, but Robert Crumb penned the adaptation; any viewer who digs these references will undoubtedly like the film. Kline’s movie follows a senior in high school and aspiring cartoonist who is enamored with the style, subversion, and salaciousness of underground comics. After his art teacher dies, Robert decides to not just drop out of school but of the entire bourgeois life that was pre-programmed for him. Instead of leaving his parents’ fine Princeton home for college, Robert heads to Trenton to live in a disgusting basement and draw comics.
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The Darkly Comic Anti-Inspirational Funny Pages
A24
Funny Pages immediately feels like the kind of lackadaisical, youthful indie movies on the American scene in the ’90s, a dozen years of great, quiet, and offbeat comedy-dramas beginning with Slacker and Metropolitan, moving through Clerks and Welcome to the Dollhouse, and ending with Ghost World and Donnie Darko. These were movies about young people too cynical (or lazy) to ‘chase their dreams;’ they could barely speed walk. These films were about the proud misfits and losers who had opted out of the American Nightmare, deciding to stare at the weird and ugly world after realizing that one must close their eyes to dream.
In this way, Funny Pages feels outside of time. It certainly doesn’t fit in with the more inspirational, progressive, ‘follow your dreams’ movies that studios pander toward youth, because in this film, Robert’s dream is to be an outcast, a deviant, a walking middle finger to the world. He is not a likable character, more like a bully-in-training who condescends to nearly everyone around him who he doesn’t need something from. The only exceptions to Robert’s cruel rule are the cartoonists he idolizes, including one who is shockingly more of an a-hole than him, and perhaps a vision of Robert’s future.
A24
This isn’t to say that the surrounding characters in Funny Pages are any better. Most of them are much less mean, but they’re all unhappy and uncomfortable to be around; some are eccentric, and some have oddly attained a type of supreme eccentricity in their utter banality, as if there’s a weirdness on the other side of boring.
Kline paints his world like many underground comics paint theirs — people are ugly, spaces are claustrophobic in their clutter, and almost nobody is nice. There’s an undercurrent of menace tracing throughout the film, tipping its balance into the off-kilter. Nothing is said outright, but there’s a dirty, threatening feeling hovering over many scenes (the threat of pedophilia, violence, death). Funny Pages is a comedy that hurts.
Funny Pages Celebrates and Condemns Comics Culture
A24
All of this is abundantly evident in the very first scene of the film, a masterful sequence between Robert and his high school teacher and mentor which builds its discomforting humor up to a disastrous peak. The entire film is mirrored in this opening scene — there’s comedy and a perceptive character study here, but it’s caught up in a whirlwind nauseously spinning out of control leading to a crescendo of bleak comedy.
Kline had been working on the script for Funny Pages on and off for nearly a decade, beginning when he was an aspiring cartoonist himself. He obviously adores comics, but he incisively critiques its culture of arrogance, elitism, and male neuroses. As such, Funny Pages is a strong reminder that the real world of comic books looks a lot different from the multi-billion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sweat, grease, pimples, and flabs of fat coalesce in the comic store in Funny Pages, where men and boys (or men-as-boys) discuss Archie comics and Tales of Beanworld, critiquing each other but never severing ties because they know there’s nowhere else for them to go.
Related: Watch the First Trailer for Owen Kline’s Funny Pages
Funny Pages both celebrates and condemns this culture, the real comic book culture and not the one which has been assimilated into the mainstream as big-budget action flicks and t-shirts bearing the phrase ‘I Heart Nerds.’ The film feels utterly authentic, the kind of grimy, miserable world Robert seems to actually be pursuing. Rebelling against his well-off parents and suburban upbringing, Robert is the teenager who reads Robert Crumb and Charles Bukowski and then wants to become a homeless alcoholic, romanticizing what he perceives to be subversion and anti-conformity. He seems to embrace the grossness which follows.
Owen Kline’s Movie For Misanthropes
A24
Robert rents a cheap ‘apartment,’ which is actually half a bedroom in a basement boiler room which is always incredibly hot. He lives with two creepy middle-aged men who mandate that he tells nobody where he’s staying. Greasy comb-overs, dead eyes, and sweaty everything fill the uncomfortable heat of this room, and Robert loves it. There’s a swampy, green fish tank devoid of actual fish; he asks his new roommate (who is surely on some government registry somewhere) where the fish went. “The other fish ate it,” he replies, dripping. “Where’s the other fish?” Robert responds. Silence ensues. Kline is an expert at creating odd, funny moments with a hot slice of menace like these.
The only traditional ‘plot point’ of Funny Pages comes after Robert strikes out on his own in the brave weird wilderness of the world. He has a chance encounter with a misanthropic, mentally disturbed man named Wallace who used to work for Image Comics, one of the big names in Robert’s world. The young man attempts to ingratiate himself with Wallace, looking for a new mentor after the death of his teacher, but Wallace has gone in such a dark direction that he seems unable to connect with anyone, a morbid portend of Robert’s future. It’s a subtle, borderline abusive relationship that illuminates many of the film’s insights.
Matthew Maher and the Great Cast of Funny Pages
A24
Funny Pages would be too dark, or perhaps too amateurish and meatless, without its phenomenal ensemble cast of iconoclastic character actors, the kind of people who almost look like cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ drawings themselves. There are some more well-known faces, like the excellent Maria Dizzia and Josh Pais as Robert’s long-suffering parents, but the film really excels in casting lesser-known actors who completely look the part, something possibly learned from the Safdie brothers. One of those directors’ great character actors, Mitchell Wenig, shows up and is hilarious, along with perfect bit parts from Andy Milonakis, Marcia DeBonis, Michael Townsend Wright, Cleveland Thomas Jr., Rob M. Anderson, and Tony Hassini.
Miles Emanuel is an astounding discovery as Robert’s close-talking, overeager, deeply pockmarked friend Miles, the kind of person whose undying friendship is a one-way street with driven loyalty that’s never returned. Daniel Zolghadri is perfect as Robert himself, mastering the precocious awfulness of the character while also exposing his vulnerabilities, fears, and confusions; Zolghadri is on the rise as one of the most interesting young actors working today, having shined in Eighth Grade, Alex Strangelove, and Tales From the Loop, and he does his best work to date in Funny Pages.
Related: Here’s What the Safdie Brothers Have Been Up to Since Uncut Gems
Throughout this mix of quirky acting anomalies, the delightfully named Matthew Maher somehow stands out, absolutely incredible as the disturbed, tragic Wallace. Maher is finally getting the attention he deserves after years of hard work, with his hilarious roles in Our Flag Means Death and Outer Range turning the spotlight in his direction, but he delivers a real masterpiece here. Wallace is someone who might be too pathetic to be unlikable, but certainly wouldn’t care one way or the other if he’s liked; this character does not like you. There are massive reservoirs of shame, insecurity, and illness coursing throughout Wallace, and Maher plays it to perfection while also being downright funny.
Refusing to Come of Age in Funny Pages
A24
Ultimately, Funny Pages feels like a refreshing break from the sometimes toxic optimism and assembly line narratives of most coming-of-age movies. It’s a veritable anti-coming-of-age film, using its lo-fi aesthetic and protagonist’s perspective to depict the decisions behind a refusal to come of age, while also exposing the sadness behind the alternative. There have been a bevy of films about ‘the manchild,’ comedies which infantilize the modern man as characterized by Judd Apatow, Adam McKay, Adam Sandler, and Seth Rogen productions. The Guardian even asks, “Why are there so many movies about guys who won’t grow up?”
Funny Pages explores the reality of that, as filtered through the lens of comic book culture, misanthropy, and ’90s indie films. Actual arrested development and the ‘Peter Pan Syndrome’ which has infected modern comedies is not cute or endearing. In reality, it’s frankly sad, gross, or uncomfortable when people refuse to grow up, and that’s the world in which Funny Pages resides, albeit with wonderfully awkward humor.
It’s unclear at the end of the film just what trajectory Robert’s life will take; as he stares at the endless rows of comics, one wonders if there’s a comic book version of 1 Corinthians 13:11 — “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” Then again, maybe it’s understandable why someone would not want to come of age in this world. From Elara Pictures and A24, Funny Pages is now in theaters.
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