Forget David Cronenberg’s porno-horror comeback or Ruben Östlund’s latest acid bath of skewering social satire, because the most flesh-crawling black comedy to premiere in Cannes this week is Owen Kline’s relentlessly ugly, cheerfully grimy Funny Pages. The son of screen star Kevin Kline and sometime actor himself, Kline’s small but assured directing debut has some of the old-school no-budget indie feel of early-career Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater or David O. Russell. But it arrives in Cannes backed by some reputable cinematic allies, with feted New York lowlife chroniclers Ben and Joshua Safdie (Good Time, Uncut Gems) credited as producers, and their regular cinematographer Sean Price Williams helping out behind the camera.
A coming-of-age story with a bracingly sour sense of humour, Funny Pages takes place against a backdrop of geeky adolescent comic-book obsessives. Kline is a comics fan himself, and seems to be channeling the jaundiced observational eye of feted left-field artists like Robert Crumb, Peter Bagge, Harvey Pekar and Daniel Clowes here, incorporating snippets of graphic artwork into the narrative. Behind its emphatically grungy lo-fi aesthetic, this confident debut is a sharp-witted, acutely observed snapshot of America’s nerdcore underbelly. The misanthropic tone and mildly transgressive themes will grate with some, but Kline’s unflinching comic vision is strong enough to generate healthy niche business following its festival run.
Funny Pages stars Daniel Zolghadri as Robert, a bratty but endearing 17-year-old high schooler from Princeton, New Jersey with ambitions to become a comics artist. His best friend Miles (Miles Emmanuel) is a fellow dorky ousider, their shared comic-book aspirations shot through with unspoken homoerotic tension and bitter passive-aggressive rivalry. Meanwhile, Robert’s art-teacher mentor Mr Katano (Stephen Adly Guirgis) takes a disturbingly close interest in the boy’s talents that leads down a very dark path involving unsolicited nudity, a fatal traffic accident, and an arrest for burglary.
Rescued from possible jail time by his strait-laced but eternally patient parents (Maria Dizzia and Josh Pais), an ungrateful Robert defiantly announces he is skipping his planned college education and leaving home to indulge his bohemian artistic dreams. Mum and dad are understandably apoplectic, but the Holden Caulfield of comics insists he must follow his muse. In concrete terms, this entails moving into a hellish shared basement apartment in Trenton, a sweltering sunless dungeon full of clutter and despair occupied by Barry (Michael Townsend Wright), a creepy grotesque with a fondness for vintage Hollywood B-movies and an unnerving sex-criminal aura.
While he awaits his inevitable big break into fame and fortune, Robert pays the rent with a dreary clerical job that brings him into contact with Wallace (Matthew Maher), a borderline sociopath with tenuous links to a revered cult comic-book imprint. Despite Wallace’s prickly manner and unstable temper, a desperate Robert adopts him as his latest mentor, unwisely inviting him to the family home to spend a squirmingly awful Christmas with his parents.
Kline keeps the awkward laughs flowing steadily throughout the compact span of Funny Pages, even though his low-key pay-off is not the comic crescendo it should have been, and he never allows much compassion for these inherently pitiful, melancholy malcontents. An excellent ensemble cast lend grit and authenticity to even the most repellent characters while the film’s deliberately unflattering, washed-out look seems deigned to amplify physical ugliness, mottled skin and terrible hair, a mean-spirited anti-aesthetic that recalls the films of Todd Solondz. Louise Lasser, TV sit-com veteran and ex-wife of Woody Allen, appears in a stand-out cameo while Irish singer-songwriter Sean O’Hagan’s breezy score lends an ironically cheery air to this carnival of slime. A highly promising, mildly nauseating debut.
Director, screenwriter: Owen Kline
Cast: Daniel Zolghadri, Matthew Maher, Miles Emanuel, Marcia Debonis, Michael Townsend Wright, Cleveland Thomas Jr, Josh Pais, Maria Dizzia, Stephen Adly Guirgis
Producers: Oscar Boyson, David Duque Estrada, Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, Sebastian Bear-McClard, Ronald Bronstein
Cinematography: Hunter Zimny, Sean Price Williams
Editing: Owen Kline, Erin Dewitt
Music: Sean O’Hagan
Production companies: A24 (US), Elara Pictures (US)
World sales: A24
Venue: Cannes Film Festival (Directors’ Fortnight)
In English
85 minutes
