Rick Alverson’s The Comedy Stirs Up Crowds & Critics at Sundance. Watch A New Clip From the Film
Posted: January 26th, 2012 by Abe
ALSO: Rough House Pictures (Danny McBride, David Gordon Green) Comes On Board to Present Rick Alverson’s The Comedy.
The provocative and controversial drama The Comedy was one of the most talked about movies at Sundance this past week. The movie, in U.S Dramatic Competition, stars Tim Heidecker (of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!), has inspired heated post-screening Q&A’s and has polarized critics and audiences alike, the sign of any truly visionary film. Director Rick Alverson removes the safe, rosy filter off of contemporary culture to give the audience a look behind the curtain at the cost of American Utopianism and its unintentional byproduct of numbness and disconnect. The film also features Eric Wareheim (Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!), James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), Jeff Jensen, Kate Lyn Sheil, Alexia Rasmussen, and Gregg Turkington (aka Neil Hamburger).
Also, Jagjaguwar in conjunction with producers Mike S. Ryan (Greyshack Productions) and Brent Kunkle (Larry Fassenden’s production company Glass Eye Pix), is very proud to partner with Rough House Pictures (whose principals include actor Danny McBride, directors David Gordon Green and Jody Hill) to present the movie. Jagjaguwar has been working with Rick Alverson as a musician or a director since 1996 (9 albums, 4 movies), and this latest partnership, where Rough House brings to the fold the “true harmony between David Gordon Green’s lyrical filmmaking and Danny’s darkly comic sensibility”, as Alverson puts it, seems like a perfect fit.
Here are some select reactions:
“While The Comedy is one hell of a challenging film, it deserves tremendous respect for its clarity of vision. It’s not “Animal House,” it’s Lars von Trier’s “The Idiots”. – IFC
“A dark, determinedly abrasive study of a slovenly Brooklyn hipster…this singular Sundance entry is certain to split reactions every which way…Heidecker… gives a compulsively fascinating performance…Alverson’s unfussy filmmaking breathes quiet assurance.” – Variety
“Rick Alverson unleashes a camouflaged assault on contemporary culture veiled in a gorgeously crafted and humorous veneer. As taboos are broken, audience members are forced to question their boundaries and whether they should be laughing with it, at it, or not at all.” – Trevor Groth, Sundance Film Festival
“By far one of the most wildly inappropriate and pitch black comedies Iʼve ever seen in my life.”
– Film Threat
“Word on the street is you either love or you hate The Comedy — an acerbic accounting of an over-privileged, aged Williamsburg hipster. I never knew what the main character, played perfectly by Tim Heidecker in his first dramatic role, was about to do — not even for a second. For me, that was a major triumph of the film.” – Liliana Greenfield-Sanders, Huffington Post
“An epic display of the over-privileged, eternally adolescent white American male behaving badly…Alverson is onto something culturally significant.” – Hollywood Reporter
“Digs up something that affects more people than just Brooklynites, the lack of sincerity in our lives and this generation’s reluctance of commitment. It’s a meaty film, filled with ideas unobscured by any generic narrative string, a move that shows not only the confidence of the director but his respect of the audience. This is one that’ll have people talking.” – Indiewire / Playlist
“The Comedy is the first movie I’ve ever walked out of. Ever… The movie is, on second thought, kind of brilliant…” – Heather Donohue (actress in Blair Witch Project, via Huffington Post)
