SXSW breakout film ‘Don’t Think Twice’ takes a shot at ‘SNL,’ slyly
One of the big breakouts at this year’s SXSW Film Festival is “Don’t Think Twice.†And one of the most potent aspects of the film is its broadside against “Saturday Night Live.â€
Just don’t call it a broadside to its director.
Mike Birbiglia’s movie — starring improv comics, about improv comedy, though not always comedic — has been sparking strongly enthusiastic responses at the festival.
The film examines a fictional troupe known as The Commune: suave comer Jack (Keegan-Michael Key), emotionally conflicted Samantha (Gillian Jacobs), droll Bill (Chris Gethard), trust-fund adult Lindsay (Tami Sagher), graphic artist Allison (Kate Micucci) and teacher and underachiever Miles (Birbiglia). Their natural rhythms means they’re often riffing but, fortunately for viewers (and anomalously in movies about comedians), not always wincingly on.
Streaking the funny with the tragic, “Don’t Think Twice†has a kind of loose rhythm that makes its protagonists feel less like characters than your complicated friends. (That it’s inspired by Birbiglia’s own time on the circuit helps in this regard.) In addition to the line it walks between humor and heartbreak, the movie also manages to two-hand intimacy and distance; though the characters can have some self-pity, you never feel like you’re wallowing in it with them. In short, it’s really good.
But the film also has another aspect beyond its psychological portraits. The Commune’s easy dynamic is disrupted when Jack gets a major career break: an audition with “Weekend Live.†And it’s here the “SNL†criticism kicks in. “Weekend Live†is an obvious stand-in for the long-running NBC variety series. And neither the on-screen quality or the behind-the-scenes imaginings are especially favorable. Sometimes they’re downright sharp.
The culture of the show, via the glimpses we get from Jack’s perspective, is of a place run by fear. The Lorne Michaels-esque character in particular is stern and harsh.
As for the series itself, the few bits of sketches we see are exaggeratedly un-funny. At one moment, the Communes sit around and wonder whether show was better when they were younger or it was “always†bad and they just didn’t realize it because they were young.
Though getting out some resentment is almost a requisite for any comedian movie — and how this one’s creator feels about “SNL†will hardly be a mystery to anyone who sees the movie — Birbiglia himself is demure about what he’s trying to do.
Asked at a post-screening Q&A essentially if this was his poison-pen letter to the show, the director (who has no known affiliation to “SNLâ€) sounded an equivocal note.
“It varies week to week,†he said of the quality, then steered away further. He noted he thought the show was well-cast and said that the reason he uses it in the film is because “it’s one of the only things we [comedians] agree on†as a “live sporting event†of comedy.
But standing next to him, Ira Glass, the “This American Life†host and a producer on “Don’t Think Twice,†was less inclined to let Birbiglia get away with it, and decided to highlight the director’s negative feelings.
“Birbiglia turns up his nose at ‘SNL’†Glass said, dragging out the syllables in the mock-authoritative voice of a TV commentator. “And he hasn’t even been offered the job!â€
Birbiglia gave a nervous laugh and tried for an out. “It’s not my genre, it’s not my genre†he said, laughing a little more.
The exchange showed the knotty duality underlying the approach. Birbiglia is pretty clearly criticizing “SNL†in the film, at the very least for its head-scrambling effect on up-and-coming comedians, but, more likely, for what he feels is its overstated importance in the pantheon of American comedy. This is a film with something to say not just about the comic personality but whether we’ve allowed “SNL†to filter too much through our pop-culture life.
Yet either for reasons of professional expediency or because he simply doesn’t want to alienate the show’s fans, many of whom also would be potential viewers of the movie, Birbiglia doesn’t want to appear to be making that criticism.
That’s an especially tricky line to walk. The movie is able to toe a few of them. We’ll see, when the film comes out later this year, if its director can too.
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