Tight, talented, but obscure New York improv group is suddenly thrown into turmoil when one of its members gets tapped to join the cast of a faux-SNL show called “The Weekend Live.”
Solid, at times hilarious, well observed comedy/drama is something of a unicorn.
All too often, when movies or television shows attempt to depict the lives of professional funny people, the performed comedy bits contained within often play as anything but funny. The contrast between the fake audience doubled over in laughter and our “nothing but crickets” reaction is often jarring – see “Late Night” (2019) or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” (2017). Not here, though. The five or six scenes in which the improv group is shown performing are all funny, inspired bits of high wire act comic nonsense.
Writer/director Mike Birbiglia plays Miles. A veteran of the local comedy scene and founder of the improv group known as “The Communes”, Mike also teaches the craft to eager newcomers – especially eager female newcomers end up performing extra shows in his bed.
Keegan-Michael Key – half of the hilarious and now defunct comedy team Key and Peele – plays Jack. Accused by other members of the group of showboating whenever there’s a talent scout in the audience, despite his denials, Jack is clearly eager to break out into bigger things. His girlfriend, Samatha (Gillian Jacobs), also a member, is both Jack’s biggest fan, a very talented performer herself and a check on his more ambitious tendencies.
The rest of the group is rounded out by nerdy Allison, (Kate Micucci) – who, for some reason, reminded me of Emo Phillips – Lindsay (Tami Sagher), who’s still living at home with her mom and neurotic and fragile Bill (Chris Gethard).
There may be no more fitting name for an improv group than “The Communes.” As stressed during the teaching segments, Miles always reminds newcomers that improv is a communal art form – no one performer is more important than the other and each performer must buy into this philosophy or it will not work.
Great idea and also a kind of lie. Performers are naturally desirous of attention – that urge to hog the spotlight is ever present. The improv group dynamic – though wonderfully creative and inventive when working together in an all-for-one, one-for-all spirit – also functions as a kind of restraint mechanism – a silly seatbelt? In that way, throughout any given performance, the collective is always vulnerable to any one individual member’s own need to break through and assert themselves as one apart and above the group.
Three cheers for Birbiglia and cast as they effortlessly dramatize what a fine tuned improv group looks like when they are performing as one and what they look like when they are not. Take away the laughs and the film simply would not work.
Early, the cast works well off of one another in painting a picture of perfect harmony – though, unharmonious hints poke up from under the surface here and there. Then, when the shit hits the fan, and Jack does in fact showboat his way onto the cast of “The Weekend Live”, they are equally good at breaking off into smaller groups or going it alone in an attempt to piggyback on their ambitious and successful improv mate’s good fortune – a neat bit of hypocrisy that quietly quakes ‘neath the surface.
Birbiglia, Key and Jacobs play the central couple’s tension really well. Professionally speaking, Jack has hit the – sorry – jack-pot. Personally, though, he’s hit a wall. Something is suddenly not right with him and Samantha. They seem unhooked from one another. Their conversations are stilted. Their body language suggests discomfort and hesitancy. Words go unsaid and feelings go unexpressed. This is a key moment of triumph and transition for the two. Sadly, though, only one of them is all in.
She’s clearly jealous, right? That would be no surprise. They’re in a very competitive business. It’s natural for Samantha to be both happy for Jack and also pissed off that it didn’t happen to her.
But, that’s not it. She had a “Weekend Live” audition scheduled right after Jack’s. Here’s the thing, though – she didn’t go through with it. She made it inside the office, but quickly turned around and marched right back out. Maybe she was too intimidated. Maybe she was worried that, if she didn’t get the gig, it would be such a blow to her comedy ego that she would never recover from it. Or, maybe she was afraid she’d get the gig and Jack wouldn’t and that his jealousy would sink him and the relationship. Nope, not that either.
Birbiglia wisely takes Samantha down a much more interesting and humanizing path. In doing so, he also highlights just how much of an earthquake sudden success can be for everyone – not just the one at the very centre of all the shaking.
More importantly, though, this story choice sets up a dazzling scene between Jack and Samantha that is a marvel of metaphor, deft comedic timing and aching realisation. It’s a knockout of a scene.
Just to expand on that, every single writer and director or writer/director is faced with answering one question, over and over and over again, as they bring their film to life. That question? “How am I going to do my X?” In other words, “How am I going to do my car chase?” “How am I going to do my sex scene?” “How am I going to do my break up scene?” You are not the first and you won’t be the last. The real art of storytelling is doing the expected in an unexpected way. That goes for filmmaking as well. The truth is, the vast majority of storytellers and filmmakers do the expected in an expected way. They answer that question like everybody else has answered that question.
Happily, Birbiglia and company found a way to answer, at least one of those key questions, in their own unique way. That’s exciting and that’s why I’m such a film fan – I’m always hoping that filmmakers answer “How am I going to do my X?” in the way they want to instead of the way they are expected to. Now, it isn’t terribly filmic – it doesn’t involve any interesting camera angles, framing, editing, use of off-screen space, montage, cross-cutting, but it does incorporate the art of improv as a vehicle for a very emotionally delicate and devastating scene.
All in all, DTT is a tight, funny, moving tale of community v. the individual, of celebrity life v. anonymity, of being there for each other whether in laughter or in tears. It strives for realism when it’s not striving for the absurd and vice versa. Achieving an envious mix of laughter and sadness, DTT does what most films only wish they could do and does it all without breaking much of a sweat.
