Trying to be funny but utterly lacking in style or originality.
Plot summary
With an interminable case of writer's block and a personal family crisis, playwright Nate is forced to move into his father's retirement community.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
April 09, 2018 at 07:44 AM
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLUMovie Reviews
Jr. high stuff
Jemaine Clement is always good.
You can't really go wrong with this movie if you like Jemaine Clement. I like everything he's ever been in and after watching Humor Me it remains the same. He lost his kiwi accent for this movie though, don't know why he did that, don't really get it either. If you're from New-Zealand you have an accent and that makes your charm. That said he should just speak like he always does. Humor Me is full of subtle jokes, Jemaine Clement's facial expressions, it all brought a smile on my face for the entire movie, what else could I ask for when watching a comedy? Easy and entertaining story, good acting, a recipe for a good evening of cinema.
"Life's gonna happen whether you smile or not. Might as well try to smile."
The overwhelming sense I got while watching this movie was that I was observing real people and not actors. The ensemble cast really clicks in their actions with one another, and even though Elliott Gould's celebrity intrudes every now and then, even he looked like he belonged with this often times dysfunctional group of characters. The principal dynamic in the story involves Nate Kroll's (Jemaine Clement) relationship with his father (Gould), and how Nate stumbles through the tail end of his four year writer's block and a recently failed marriage. For his part, Bob Kroll relies on a consistent stream of never ending jokes to lighten the burden of his wife's passing, along with a heart condition that turns frighteningly real, eventually leading to a favorable reconciliation with his older son. I found it kind of interesting that the rental locker that Bob used to store his early family mementos was numbered '808', because if you spotted it quickly, it looked like that was spelling out his name in capitals. Just another little quirk among all the other quirks Nate encountered on his little side trip to the Cranberry Bog retirement community. It's not unusual for me to come across a movie I never heard of before, and was kind of shocked to read on this site that the film only grossed around forty grand when it was released. Granted it's not an awards contender by any means, but I do think it deserves a wider audience, especially among IMDb viewers who might nudge it's rating up a notch. Maybe a little word of mouth could move it in the right direction, as Nate Kroll's words would have suggested when he remarked to his departing wife, "Quality work takes time".