Jimmy Fallon, Tom Hanks, Amy Schumer, Jim Gaffigan, Judd Apatow, Lisa Kudrow, Larry David, and Jon Favreau are among over 60 famous very famous American and Canadian funny people who share life and professional journeys and insights, in an effort to shed light on the thesis: Do you have to be miserable to be funny?
While there's no single, monumental insight here-no a-ha moment that cracks the code of comedy-there are a ton of stories and opinions that comedy nerds should love.
If only he had probed a bit deeper, and widened his scope beyond the predominantly white, male subjects (including our own Rob Brydon, Steve Coogan and Stephen Merchant), this could have been a fascinating film as well as a funny one.
With so many subjects, it's obvious the director is going for quantity, but it doesn't work (especially the scenes with Matthew Perry; a funny actor is much different from a professional stand-up). The overall tone feels scattered and self-important.
Do you have to be sad to be funny? You'll have to sit through a slew of micro-anecdotes and shop talk before you get any answers from this choppy documentary - longer than any decent comic would defer a punchline.
We hear plenty of engaging anecdotes, though, taken together, they don't do much to illuminate a subject that has been thoroughly explored elsewhere ...
