Shadows on the Wall | Funny Pages

Funny Pages

dir-scr Owen Kline
prd Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, Sebastian Bear-McClard, Ronald Bronstein, Oscar Boyson, David Duque-Estrada
with Daniel Zolghadri, Matthew Maher, Miles Emanuel, Maria Dizzia, Josh Pais, Marcia DeBonis, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Ron Rifkin, Michael Townsend Wright, Cleveland Thomas Jr, Andy Milonakis, Louise Lasser
release US 26.Aug.22,
UK 16.Sep.22
22/US 1h26

CANNES FILM FEST

Is it streaming?

There's such a sharp edge to this coming-of-age comedy that it continually catches the audience by surprise. Everything in this film feels quirky and almost exaggerated in its nuttiness, and yet there's also a gritty realism that upholds each character and situation. With his feature debut, writer-director Owen Kline boldly refuses to indulge in any genre cliches and finds new ways to bring the audience into the story.

In New Jersey, 17-year-old aspiring cartoonist Robert (Zolghadri) is shaken when he loses his mentor (Guirgis) in a freak accident. So he tells his parents (Dizzia and Pais) and best pal Miles (Emanuel) that he's dropping out of school to hone his voice as an artist. He gets a job with lively public defender Cheryl (DeBonis), and rents a room from creepy landlord Barry (Wright). And when he learns that Cheryl's client Wallace (Maher) once worked for a comics publisher, he decides to befriend him and learn anything he can. What could possibly go wrong?

Kline shoots the film largely in extreme close-up, which unnervingly captures imperfections in the characters' skin and often wildly idiosyncratic behaviour. This also adds an intimacy with Robert, as his observant eyes take everything in, feeding his art. So while everything feels madly exaggerated, there's an earthy authenticity in Robert's point of view, feeding into his disarming satirical comics, which are refreshingly rude.

Zolghadri has terrific presence as Robert, with his piercing gaze and expressive physicality. Emotions gurgle just under the surface as he questions everything he sees, while his curiosity drives him through the uncertainty. This is a young man who has real talent but is still learning to express it. His interaction with Emanuel's more hapless Miles feels bracingly authentic, and the way he observes and challenges adults has a properly provocative edge, eliciting a range of reactions from Guirgis' eager pride and DeBonis' raw glee to Maher's rattling nerves.

Without such an undefined plot, the film feels like a rambling extended odyssey, as Robert takes in a series of experiences that build to an unusually subtle moment of shattering self-examination. Kline maintains such an exhilarating sense of energy that the audience has little choice but to hang on for the ride. Like a teen taking in the world around him, the film itself is an onslaught of images, sounds, music and outrageously in-your-face people, and all of this feels like something we've never seen before, especially on a movie screen.

themes, language, violence, sexuality 8.Aug.22

R E A D E R R E V I E W S

Still waiting for your comments ... don't be shy.