The modern face of cinematic comedy is primarily driven by improvisation. Funny actors take the situation their movie calls for and riff away. This is why many of today’s comedies seem to run in excess of two hours. And while they certainly have their funny moments, there’s a certain inelegance to the raunchy excess of today’s comedies. As a film historian and director, Peter Bogdanovich is all too familiar with the comedic stylings of yesteryear, and encapsulates them quite wonderfully in She’s Funny That Way, a modern screwball comedy in the vein of the Ernst Lubitsch.
Owen Wilson plays Arnold Albertson, a stage director on Broadway gearing up for his latest play. He’s staying at a fancy hotel for a night away from his wife Delta (Kathryn Hahn), an actress who will be appearing in the play. Upon checking in, Arnold learns that the play’s other star Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), a needy and sleazy movie star, is staying on the same floor. With his lone night of freedom, Arnold calls Vickie (Debi Mazar), who runs an upscale call girl ring, and arranges an evening with Isabella (Imogen Poots), who works under the name of Glow Stick. Operating under the pseudonym of Derek, Arnold isn’t looking for a quick fling. Instead, he takes Isabella out on the town for dinner, a horse carriage ride, before making their way to bed. Upon the completion of the deed, Arnold offers Isabella $30,000 to do whatever she wants as long as she leaves the profession of a working girl and pursues her dreams of acting. With a new life ahead of her, Isabella scores her first audition – the play that Arnold is staging which co-stars his wife. Meanwhile, the playwright Joshua (Will Forte) has struck up his own infatuation with Isabella to the detriment of his relationship with Dr. Jane Claremont (Jennifer Aniston), Isabella’s therapist. But the aspiring actress and former call girl also has a not-so-secret admirer in Judge Pendergast (Austin Pendelton), a former client of Isabella’s that has hired a private investigator (George Morfogen) to track her every move. Needless to say, all the comings and goings of everyone involved results in disaster.
She’s Funny That Way does take a little time to set up all its pieces before letting them unravel in the comedic farce. But when it does pick up, the laughs are solid – increasing the situations at every available turn. And the film, unsurprisingly, is full of odes to movie lore. Isabella speaks in references to classic movie stars and compares her situations to that of classic films. The line that Arnold uses to explain his worldview comes from the Lubistch film Cluny Brown. As a matter of fact, the film’s original (and better) title, Squirrels to the Nuts, was a reference to that line. But that’s not the mere extent of the modern take on Lubitsch’s light touch. Bogdanovich uses long takes in a number of scenes, and has no problem using innuendo as a comedic conceit of explicit vulgarity (which, mind you, is not to say that I have any issues with explicit vulgarity). The script by Bogdanovich and Louise Stratten keeps a levelheaded wit to the proceedings without ever succumbing to the tiresome feeling that sometimes plague comedies mired in modernity.
As much as She’s Funny That Way is aided by the witty script and Bogdanovich’s classical style of direction, it’s the movie stars of the film that help it retain that classical feel. Owen Wilson gives a wonderful performance, like he was pulled out of another era and planted in front of today’s cameras. With a thick, somewhat cartoonish Brooklyn accent, Imogen Poots shines as this reformed call girl turned Broadway star. Both Kathryn Hahn and Rhys Ifans play their respective roles pitch perfectly, especially when the wheels start to come off for their characters. Will Forte maintains his nice guy persona in contrast to Jennifer Aniston, who seems to be playing the bitchiest therapist in the history of the world. There are also nice, brief supporting roles from Cybil Sheppard, Richard Lewis, and Illeana Douglas.
She’s Funny That Way won’t rank alongside the classics it’s paying homage to, but it is still an entertaining farce, a breath of old fashioned fresh air. There are plenty of laughs in the escalating chaos of these imperfect characters and their imperfect sexual adventures. Bogdanovich is also wise enough to avoid using the plot of the film to sneak in some sexual moralism, knowing full well that it’d feel out of place in this type of film. But for his first film since 2001’s The Cat’s Meow, Bogdanovich has crafted another loving look back at a different kind of Hollywood. It’s rumored that at the funeral for Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder remarked, “No more Lubitsch.” Hearing that, William Wyler, another legendary filmmaker, responded, “Worse than that, no more Lubitsch pictures.” Though there are no more Lubitsch pictures, Bogdanovich captured enough of that spirit with She’s Funny That Way, and I’ll gladly take it.
She’s Funny That Way opens in select theaters and VOD on August 21, 2015