SNAPSHOT
From renowned director Peter Bogdanovich, “She’s Funny That Way” is a screwball comedy featuring the interconnected personal lives of the cast and crew of a Broadway production. When established director Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson) casts his call girl-turned-actress Isabella “Izzy” Patterson (Imogen Poots) in a new play to star alongside his wife Delta (Kathryn Hahn) and her ex-lover Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans), a zany love tangle forms with hilarious twists. Jennifer Aniston plays Izzy’s therapist Jane, who is consumed with her own failing relationship with Arnold’s playwright Joshua Fleet (Will Forte), who is also developing a crush on Izzy. (synopsis via Coming Soon)
One of the earliest movies I ever remembering seeing was What’s Up Doc? (1972), a gloriously silly over the top screwball comedy starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neil and Madeline Khan about the chaotic merriment that ensues when four identical plaid overnight bags get mixed up, leaving the wrong people holding the wrong items.
It had everything – perfectly-written, snappy oneliners, actors capable of making them zing with all the comedic flair you could hope for, and a plot that got sillier and sillier and ever more frenetic as it went on.
It remains to this day one of my favourite movies of all time.
And now the man who gave us this comedy gem, Peter Bogdanovich, is back with another screwball comedy She’s Funny That Way which looks to be every bit as deliciously silly as its predecessor.
Centering around a tangle of relationships that develop amongst a theatre group preparing for a production, it looks to have same keen eye for social commentary, witty repartee and a dream cast of actors bringing the whole hilariously complicated scenario to life.
Early reviews such as this one by Robbie Collin in Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper indicates this is very much the case:
“… it’s a hysterical screwball fantasia that openly steals from Lubitsch, Hawks, Capra and Sturges and wants to be caught with its fingers in the till. The result is a highly-sexed Jenga-pile of silliness, to which Bogdanovich can’t resist adding block after teetering block. “
Onward with the silliness I say and get ready to hold your aching from laughing sides …
She’s Funny That Way opens in USA on 14 August 2015 and Australia on 27 August.