Thoughts on Punchline

 

via Giphy/Courtesy Columbia Pictures

"What if it isn't funny? You tell me to talk about my life, but what if my life isn't funny?"
"All of our lives are funny, babe. We're God's animated cartoons."

Story time! When I was a high school freshman, I took an oral communications class. We learned how to give different kinds of speeches, like as ourselves or as someone demonstrating something. I decided to demonstrate improvisation, despite having never done it myself. I ended up demonstrating it with a senior. He being a senior and me being a freshman, he had absolutely no reason to bail me out, so he didn't. My point, besides "Know what you're doing before or even as you're doing it," is that comedy is hard.

I want to like Punchline, written and directed by David Seltzer, more than I can. The story of a potentially capable performer receiving professional and personal attention from someone who's unmistakably better but also volatile is dramatically sound. Unfortunately, there's a disconnect between what housewife Lilah (Sally Field) and former medical student Steven (Tom Hanks) offer in-universe and what they gave me. Simply put, I watched two movie stars tell jokes, not two comedians with the potential to become household names. Sally bore the brunt of the bad reviews. "It's impossible to tell the difference between Miss Field's routines that are supposed to be awful, and the awful ones that are supposed to be funny," Vincent Canby wrote. Roger Ebert agreed. So did David Denby. "As a woman who can't tell a joke, Sally Field is certainly convincing." Even if Lilah eventually settles onto a bland and inoffensive style, she at least has one that's consistent. Steven was all over the place, including sub-Sam Kinison land ("I don't hate debutantes! ... I'm not a hate-monger. I'm a ... hate-stylist.").

Without coming out and saying so, Seltzer seems to argue that spending time together increases attraction. I can't think of any other logical reason for why Steven would be attracted to Lilah. Denby again: "Is he arguing himself into (infatuation)? Pretending? Is he looking for a mommy?" Steven's so into the idea of a life with Lilah, mother of three kids (including Candace Cameron Bure!) with nonsupporting husband (and worse, an insurance salesman!) John (John Goodman), that after getting rejected, he goes out and does a painful parody of Gene Kelly's "Singin' in the Rain" dance, complete with mimicking hanging himself. Denby yet again: "A romantic rhapsody for Sally Field?" I'm still undecided about if it was a clever idea to make a drama about comedians, or if Seltzer just couldn't write a credible comedy. Either way, the end result includes a war between lame jokes and overheated angst.

"What about your husband? There's gotta be some laughs there."

"Not mine."

"I bet there is. What does he do?"

"He sells insurance."

"... You win. How 'bout your kids?"

"Three girls."

"Okay. All right. All right. Big, little, what? Nursery school, babysitters maybe?"

"Oh! God, they're gonna need one if I'm not home by 4."

"Alright, that's funny. Go with that."
"There's nothing funny in that. Nothing. The maid'll leave and then the two little ones will be there all by themselves."

"Think the comedy. Who's the babysitter?"

"Just this kid that lives down the street. I don't even think I brought his number. I ..."

"Comedy. Comedy. Comedy. What's the babysitter's name?"

"I don't know. It's just --"

"Comedy. What's the babysitter's name?"

You arguably cannot make a movie about stand ups and not include performances. Punchline's ensemble includes Damon Wayans, Taylor Negron, Pam Matteson and George McGrath. Their acts range from jokes about race (Taylor talks about trolling an Iranian carpet salesman), family and relationships (Damon claims that after 10 kids, his dad had stretch marks) to celebrity takeoffs (I'm not sure if Pam's specifically imitating anybody) and character routines (George most frequently plays a singing nun). Even if it's not all hilarious, having actual comics is the best thing for Punchline (and its audience) and the worst for Sally and Tom. There's also room for the cliches of off-stage bloodsuckers (Mark Rydell as club owner and would-be manager Romeo, Kim Greist as talent scout Madeline), performers both past their prime (Mac Robbins as Billy Lane) or without any chance of making it (Max Alexander as Mr. Ball, a moonlighting teacher who consistently bombs) and a Lilah vs. Steven finale (as part of an reality show airing on Madeline's network).

Lilah's not only performing for a TV audience, but for the first time professionally in front of John. He came around on her career, and asked to be in the audience, after she told the kids that making people laugh makes her feel special. Following her set, Lilah gets a note telling her that no matter what happens, she won. All of this is touching, yes, but thoroughly unnecessary. Seeing Lilah win over John, and earlier, Steven bomb in front of his dad and brother, reminds me that The Simpsons had a point. Family, religion and friendship are the three demons that must be slayed in order to succeed in business. Punchline includes a lot of jokes. It will also make you remember a few favorites. Sometimes you do so to forget about the "comedy" going on.

"Charlie Manson."

"All right! That's funny."

"That's funny?"

"You just wrote a joke. Yes. Yes, Charlie Manson, the babysitter. Yes, that's funny. Keep going with it. Go-go-go."

"'Honey, uh, he's put Xs on their foreheads again.'"

*Steven laughs, motions for Lilah to keep going*

"Uh, uh ... If he's busy, that we use this other nice boy. The, uh ... Davy Berkowitz."

*Lilah laughs. Steven doesn't get it. Side note: What does it say about me that I immediately got it?*

"... He's so good with dogs. *cracks up again*"

"Who's Davy Berkowitz?"

"You know ... Davy Berkowitz ... Son of Sam? You know, Davy Berkowitz, he talks to dogs?"

"Manson is funny. Berkowitz is not."

"Oh. ... I thought that was sort of funny."

"Manson is funny. Berkowitz is not."

"All right."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:
-- "Truly, honestly, I think men have it very, very hard today. ... Not when you need it, but ..."
-- Box Office: Grossing $21 million on a $15 million budget, this opened at No. 2.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "Bold, sneaky, brilliant," Sheila Benson raved. Comparing it favorably to Terms of Endearment (!), she said "I can't remember laughing this much with tears still streaming down my face, or beginning to weep while my sides still ached from laughing." Meanwhile, Ebert wanted to know, "When did stand-ups start being bores?" Roger was annoyed by a radio show with Richard Lewis interviewing (or rather, excessively flattering) Garry Shandling (who "functioned basically as an object of envy"). Anyway, Roger found Punchline to be "a pathetic movie into which a great deal of energy and talent has disappeared." Denby: "It lacks wildness, recklessness, exhilaration." Hal Hinson felt that Seltzer wanted Steven to eventually lose his edge. "We sense that, if he could, he'd have Steve do Lilah's act."

-- Critic's Corner, Tom: "A fine comic actor," Canby wrote. "He is full of nervous energy and had the talent to channel it properly." Benson loved the rain dance. "Sustained, flowingly inventive, it is Hanks' finest moment." Neither Benson nor Hinson liked the scene where Steven follows a hospital performance by chatting with a juvenile terminal cancer patient. "(Seltzer's) undermined the character and (Hanks') dazzling performance," Hal wrote. Variety: "Hanks is the real reason to see the film."

-- Critic's Corner, Sally: Benson also loved the sequence involving Lilah managing to have the house, youngest girls and herself by the time John brought home a pair of ministers for dinner. "Hers is physical comedy worthy of Lucille Ball." (And Lucy, by her own admission, was more of an actress than a comedienne.) "Miss Field has a couple of nicely nutty sequences," Canby wrote. On the other hand, Benson wished that Sally didn't have the scene where Lilah explains to her daughters that comedy makes her feel special. Hinson: "It's not merely that Field is miscast; she's miscast in a role that leaves no other resource available to her except her lovability. And Seltzer's script forces her to peddle it shamelessly." Denby one last time: "Field has become an unendurable performer ... She seems to be begging the audience not to punch her. Which, of course, is the worst kind of bullying from an actor. ... She's certainly nothing like the great housewife-comedian Roseanne Barr, who is a tough, uninhibited performer. Sally Field's pandering kind of 'heart' couldn't be further from the spirit of comedy."

-- McGrath went on to costar on Nick at Nite's On the Television. Negron was in the pilot, with McGrath playing a character he did briefly in Punchline.

Courtesy YouTube

Matteson also appeared in at least one episode.

-- Hey, It's 1988!: I've got one more clip. Movie advertisements with audience testimonials are fun, right? How about when they have famous people, like a rather dour Tom Poston? Laraine Newman's appearance is especially funny 33 years in the future, now that Hannah Einbinder's on Hacks.

Courtesy YouTube

-- Let's talk for a moment about network TV premieres. Big aired as an ABC Sunday Night Movie in 1991. Punchline apparently never got a network airing. I'm sure this stuff is worked out prior to or early on in a theatrical run, but you would think that airing Punchline would have been a no-brainer for the Alphabet Network, since they could play up Goodman and Cameron's appearances. And while we're on the subject, I wonder if John and Roseanne ever once talked about his appearing in the movie.

-- "I'm sure the Garden of Eden was a mess. I'm sure that Adam was an insensitive lover. He kept referring to their lovemaking as 'getting some rib.' He had no clue what he was doing. He was completely lost. One of the first things he said to Eve was, 'Stand back, darling. I don't know how long this thing gets." That punchline actually made it to the Academy Awards in 1999, delivered by Robin Williams of all people!

-- Next: Child's Play. On deck: Dead Ringers.