David Wain isn't one of my comedy guys. I was a little too young to catch on with The State when it was on MTV. I have no affection for that (or Stella a few years later). Wet Hot American Summer means very little to me. The Ten and Wanderlust had their moments. Role Models is the most I've liked anything of his up to this point and it's only my 4th or 5th favorite comedy of that year. He's only half responsible for A Futile and Stupid Gesture. He only directed the movie. The screenplay comes from a couple thinly credited writers best known for Penguins of Madagascar. This feels undeniably like a David Wain movie though.
There's a lot that I like about A Futile and Stupid Gesture and a lot that I find unbearably annoying (not unlike Strong Island the other day). Let's start with the positive. The casting is spot on. Doug Kenney is an ideal Will Forte role (even if this is a Johnny Depp in Public Enemies situation where he's much older than the character he's playing ever lived to be). Domhnall Gleeson has some astounding deadpan. I somehow like him even more now than I did before, which I didn't think was possible. Martin Mull works well as the narrator. Joel McHale as Chevy Chase is casting that has more layers to unpack than I can cover in a single post. I love seeing Emmy Rossum show up in anything ever. There are too many people in this to point out everyone who I enjoyed in the movie. When you can even get people like David Krumholtz or Ed Helms for anonymous roles in one of two scenes, that's a strength.
The film manages to tell a story that reflects the tone of the National Lampoon. The movie, much like the magazine, is anarchy. That leads to a lot of funny moments. And, the meta-elements give some of the exposition dumps a little more flavor. This also works against the movie though. A Futile and Stupid Gesture has two of my bigger pet peeves: it's smug and it's afraid to have emotions.
I don't like when a movie pats itself on the back for being clever, and A Futile and Stupid Gesture does that constantly. Mull's narration is used like one big band-aid. He points out mistakes and fabrications before the audience gets a chance to question them. It's trying to have it's cake and eat it too: make editing choices to fit a more traditional story structure and also break traditional story structure. Unlike something like The BigShort, which was smug in a self-important way, A Futile and Stupid Gesture is smug about staying a step ahead of the audience, not about the importance of the story. Tying into that, the film pulls back from being at all dramatic. It's not quite at a Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 level up undercutting every emotional beat with a joke, but it's close. The way that the movie keeps pulling back from talking about Kenney's dead brother mostly just annoyed me. Either bring it up or don't.
Of course, all of my issues with the film are intentional. Based on what I know of the National Lampoon and Doug Kenney, this is all consistent and reflects how difficult it would've been to get him to take his story seriously. It's just not a style I care for. Early in the film I realized that even though I was laughing with the movie, if I actually knew any of these people in real life, they'd annoy the hell out of me. The more I think about it, the title is pretty perfect.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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