It's Kind of A Funny Story, a review

It's Kind of a Funny Story can seem abit mis leading because of the title and the actors in this movie but a person would not be disappointed when they leave the threater. Mr. LaSalle said "The presence of Zach Galifianakis in the cast might lead people to assume that the movie is funnier than it is. But "It's Kind of a Funny Story" is more of a drama with some laughs than a comedy with funny parts, and Galifianakis' role, as a husband and father who has fought suicidal depression his whole life, is a sober one. Bobby (Galifianakis) takes the newbie under his wing and, in a droll but straight-faced way, shows him around." (LaSalle, M). I agree. When I was looking for a book into film movie and found out the Zach Galifianakis was in thos movie, I was sold. I loved the movies I had alreay seen him in, The Hsngover and Due Date, so I thought to myself this has to be hilarious. It wasn't what I was expecting when I picked up the novel and began reading, but I wasn't disappointed by it either. "And then gradually, what seems awful becomes human, what seems foreign becomes familiar, and about halfway into this sincere and surprisingly lovable movie, a vacation feeling sets in. He doesn't want to leave, and neither do we." (LaSalle, M). The movie has a kind of quality that people can relate to without the person relating to it ending up feeling like they need to check themselves into the hospital too. Mr. LaSalle said they movie "has a feeling of randomness about it" but the shows how well the directors, Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, did on making a movie that mimicks the brain of a 15 year-old. The train of thought is going to be all over the place and I agree with Mr. LaSalle when he says they were able to capture that without taking my mind a million different directions.

LaSalle, Mick. "Review: 'It's Kind of a Funny Story' Has Charm." San Francisco Bay Area — News, Sports, Business, Entertainment, Classifieds: SFGate. 07 Jan. 2011. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/08/MVTI1FOJSG.DTL>.

It's Kind of A Funny Story the movie (:

The movie adaptation was a little different from the novel but its necessary because the novel was written with the majority of the context inside Craig's head as he was thinking and this can be done in the novel but not so much in a movie. When it was done in the movie it was a voice over, because we heard Craig talking but we did not see him on screen at the time. The audience finds out the reason why Craig wanted to commit suicide by the voice over that begins the movie. In the beginning of the movie there is also a long shot which shows Craig riding his bike to the Brooklyn Bridge and once he is standing on the ledge, we see a Point of View shot or a high angle shot of all the traffic that he wants to plunge into. Then the camera swivels into a medium shot of his parent and his younger sister while they talk to him. A medium shot was used because if a long shot was used then you could not really see their facial expression and if it was a close up, all three people would not have been able to be in the shot. When Craig gets to the hospital, a mise-em-scene was used to set the atmosphere of the hospital for the audience already so Craig did not have to explain every character in the emergency room when he got there, it was already done for the audience. Then when Bobby shows up to give Craig a tour, and also when Noelle and Craig play doctor, a trolley shot is used because the camera is moving along with the actors to have movement but for the scene to look steady and not like somebody was simply running with a camera in their hand. Another device used a lot was over the shoulder shots, for example when Noelle and Craig played their question game and whenever his parents came and talked to him and also when he was talking to Dr. Minerva. At the end of the novel when Craig had his big switch, the author showed Craig's life after by using one word sentences. In the movie, the director showed it by creating a montage of what Craig would now be doing with his life. There was also another montage when Craig and Noelle escaped to the top of the hospital and it was just still shot with a voice over of Craig, so no acting but the audience still understood that those two moments were life changing for Craig.