"Funny Ha-Ha": Addendum

This movie has a plot. In noting how well it captures feelings, I forget to mention that it is also a well-told story wherein the characters make decisions and act on them, and that those decisions have clear consequences that drive the story forward.

Since the success of the Musing Trifecta (I just made that up) of films including PULP FICTION, SWINGERS, and DINER, some filmmakers got the terribly wrong impression that it's sufficient to make a movie consisting entirely of clever characters standing around (or driving around) musing about random topics. Even Andre, in his cinematic dinner with Wallace Shawn, didn't muse; he questioned, he investigated, and he illustrated. His story had shape and weight. Similarly, the talk in the Trifecta films added to the plot, it didn't substitute for it.

The plot of FUNNY HA-HA is about a love triangle, and the movie contains a perfect scene: the principal characters affecting one side of the triangle meet unexpectedly in a supermarket, and their grocery talk ripples with the undercurrents of the mess of relationships and loyalties and missed opportunities between them. There's a great subtlety to the actors' behavior; it isn't a scene of open confrontation and melodrama, as it would've been as told by a less confident filmmaker. Instead, it's a scene of inflection and tone and of essentially nice people in an awkward situation, trying not to hurt others or show their own hurt.

It takes guts to write and direct a scene like that, and it takes real skill to draw such unaffected vulnerability out of unprofessional actors. So again: well played, Bujalski!