Funny Pages

With its weird and grotesque characters there is a link with American Splendor which was also comic book related though Harvey Pekar was much older and tripped into comic writing. That film though had some likeable eccentric characters, on the whole, this doesn’t.

The film opens as it means to go on with Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) with his art teacher Katano (Stephen Adly Guiles) stripping down to his underpants so that Robert can draw him as well as exposing him to some under-the-counter porno comics that Katano has written.

Katano is killed in a car accident and other events lead Robert to get a drab job as a clerk in a law firm and find accommodation in a horrendous room with a very creepy landlord Barry (Michael Townsend Wright). Away from work and his room, Robert is lording it over all in the comic shop, leaving the viewer thinking if this bloke really understands friendship.

However at the law firm he finds among the cases a man called Wallace (Matther Maher) who was a colour separator for a major comic writer whom Robert idolises. He wants Wallace to look at his work and then try to rehabilitate him in some way eventually inviting him to his parents for Christmas. Parents whom Robert is virtually estranged from.

Written and directed by Owen Kline Funny Pages is wilfully weird at times especially the sweaty apartment as well as Wallace who while we know has difficulties and is vulnerable to a certain extent, is dangerous. The main problem is Robert who is just a smug self-centred brat. You can take into account the trauma of the death of Katano and that he may feel partly be responsible thus triggering his quest for something more fulfilling.

But the way he goes about it borders on the cruel and exploitational certainly with the way he treats friends and family – not that the latter are that welcoming. Other than a couple of minor characters everyone in Funny Pages is awful.

What it does do is propose that you may have supreme self-confidence and a brain the size of a planet but if your judgement is flawed - as Robert’s clearly is on so many levels - you are going to have problems. The catalogue of mistakes sets this up as young person’s coming of age/rites of passage movie and the ending suggests that Robert may take something away from his experiences.

Funny Pages is in cinemas and exclusively on Curzon Home Cinema now.