Funny Pages Review

Saddled with that suburbia aesthetic, a rejection of it throughout Funny Pages is key for the cartoonist at the heart of this Owen Kline-directed piece. An aesthetic style as well as a technical display that successfully replicates the emotive and visual style of the mid-1970s, yet manages modern shot choreography. At the heart of it, there is a blur of the line, camerawork and scratchy film from The Last Detail, blurred with relatively modern ideals that see the rejection of college and a technical, modernised design of cultural aesthetics. At the heart of this Kline piece is an incredible message of individuality that few films have managed to do so, under the banner A24.

Does natural talent benefit from being developed in a conventional institution? Funny Pages asks that question relatively well. Sometimes the best influences come from those that are completely beyond the pale of sanity, as Funny Pages delves into almost immediately. Misguided these moments may be, they are also deeply uncomfortable. Each character looks sullen, saddled with some miserable backstory that audiences will never know, everybody within Funny Pages feels relatively disturbed or missing a few screws. There is an unwashed feel to Funny Pages that flows throughout the oddball characters who are not the typical leads. They are weird and uncoordinated but do have a level of charm to them in their unique desire to push ahead with what they feel is the right course of action.

Finding a voice and those that bring it out is the righteous path of the artist, as Funny Pages frequently tries to discover. Kline’s direction is particularly unique in the sense that a homage to both the 1970s stylisation of camerawork and a nod toward American Splendor feels relatively charmed. Although the black comedy feels a tad overwhelming at times, there is a delicacy in attempting to present comic book pursuers and collectors as something more than nerds. That fails, and instead, Kline doubles down on weird idiosyncrasies that do little for the characters and their likeability but wonders for his coming-of-age message. Sometimes life is bloody, and often it will be wrought with shocking grief, but at the end of it, they can be relied upon as some form of artistic muse.

Although Funny Pages has some difficulties in getting that out of itself, it does have a charming space to work in, a uniquely untapped sheen of nostalgia that works out the best of its themes. Daniel Zolghadri’s performance as Robert is the catalyst that keeps on moving. Events happen to him and the relatively numb response is a fascinating, intrinsic one that keeps Kline’s piece pushing forward. So do his characters. Funny Pages is a darkly set comedy whose elements of humour rarely work, but in the face of that is a rare defiance that sees the oddball take over, the violence rush through and the deeply disturbing foundation rocked to its core. Fascinating at the worst of times, but inherently unique in its approach to the oversaturation of a genre trying to tell people they are all unique.