Funny Thing About Funny Ha-Ha

The other evening Seattlest went to see Funny Ha-Ha at the Northwest Film Forum, not quite knowing what to expect. We can get like that. It's best to just let us go.

Now, while we genuinely liked this film, it was clear to us that it's for a particular audience. Are you that audience? That isn't clear yet. We'll see. We just want to make sure you have a good experience, it's not a judging thing. Some people like strawberry, some like chocolate, as you know.

The movie follows a 20-something graduate named Marnie around as she begins to appreciate the sometimes subtle distinction between living her own life and letting life live her. Kate Dollenmayer plays Marnie. She's a revelation. We meet her as she drunkenly staggers into a shop to get "some kind of" tattoo.

This is documentary-style, see. The camera just plunks us down into her life and the whole 20-something ball of confusion. She's got career issues, friend issues, drinking issues, but of course the main thing, the important thing (as Seattlest well remembers) is whether she's in a self-defining relationship or not. Marnie is not, and she's on a quest to find one.

Now, if you are a hard-boiled type, if you like an explosion or two, a hail of bullets, this may not be for you. A highlight scene, for instance, is when Marnie takes a call from her crush after his sister tells him Marnie's interested and is going to ask him out, and he's not interested. You either really go for the way her face screws up and she mumbles, or you don't.

That said, this is one of the most funny, socially observant movies Seattlest has seen since a young crank named Woody Allen got his start. It's awkward and structurally lumpy, the sound is laughably bad, so you must be willing to forgive it looking like that film-school friend of yours made it.

Still, if you're 20-something and you want cinematic proof that your so-called life is not a freakish accident, but relatively normal, this might be the film for you. If, like Seattlest, you can afford to laugh about it all now, that makes a good reason to go see it, too. As we say, it's showing at the Northwest Film Forum through Thursday, September 1, 7:15pm and 9:00pm. Tickets are $8 for non-members, $5 for members.