RICK ALVERSON: ENTERTAINMENT (2015)


GREGG TURKINGTON IN ENTERTAINMENT

Long nasty road to despair, via unfunny humor

For those looking for a thoroughly unpleasant experience on film Rick Alverson's Entertainment is hard to beat. There are echoes of Fellini here (there's an energetic but slightly pathetic clown warmup act, played by Mud and Joe's up-and-comer Tye Sheridan), but the sad sweetness has all been replaced by mean nastiness. The film is conceived as a vehicle for Gregg Turkington or rather his two-bit washed-up performer alter ego, usually known as Neil Hamburger, whom he has reportedly played for several decades. The attempt, successful in sheer terms of screen-occupying, is to give this persona an off-stage, three-dimensional depiction.

The character is a mind-bogglingly terrible standup comic with an exceptional ability to bore and offend his small bar-club audiences and viciously and obscenely attack any members who visibly and audibly protest this assault on their sensibilities and waste of their time. He is shown touring around the Mohave desert and the empty oil-rich plains surrounding Bakersfield, California (Five Easy Pieces' setting, it's pointed out), staying in grim motels, riding in an old car, making futile nightly calls to the message machine of an estranged daughter, adding a note of pathos.

In a ritual that is shown more often than necessary, the pot-bellied, deadpan Turkington/Hamburger prepares for his "performances" by dressing in a ridiculous cheap tuxedo with outsize, outdated glasses. To enhance the unpleasant visual effect, he does an ugly comb-over that he emphasizes by making it dripping wet. He speaks to the audience in a high pitched whine, often interrupted by loud phlegm-enriched throat-clearing, and he repeats the word "Why?" gratingly. Most of his jokes are of the "What" and "Why" form, such as "Why don’t rapists eat at T.G.I. Friday’s?" and "What’s the difference between Courtney Love and the American flag?" The answers are too vulgar and offensive to repeat.

Trouble is, the chronological spaces between performances aren't always coherent, and the action is repetitious. The effect is of nails endlessly scraping across a blackboard. Cameos by John C. Riley (as the comic's supportive, but reserved cousin), Michael Cera (as a random stranger) detract from the mood rather than furthering it. The same can be said of a lecture on color theory, and a torturous moment at an optician's office (though it does provide a memorable image; Alverson may be a bit too enamored of anything that's odd and shocks).

Thus it turns out that Alverson doesn't quite wind up having the skill to build Turkington's stage schtick into the desired three-dimensional off-stage character, but as offensive, unbearable-to-watch movies go, this is up there. This will have cult appeal for hipsters in search of so-bad-it's-hilarious humor. Others need to give it a wide birth.

Perhaps the audiences are real. Doubtless the first one, in a prison, is so, and, interestingly, it is the most amused at the flat, intentionally terrible jokes of "The Comedian," as he is solely known here.

In a typically detailed review Scott Founas of Variety helps set Alverson's film in context, pointing out "The Comedian "suggests a cross between Andy Kaufman’s desiccated lounge singer Tony Clifton and Mr. Sophistication, the desperate vaudeville MC memorably played by Meade Roberts in John Cassavetes’ The Killing of a Chinese Bookie." Foundas notes besides the Cassavetes reference the film also "nods in the direction of both Two-Lane Blacktop and Paris, Texas (complete with Dean Stockwell cameo)," partly becoming a road movie.

Along the way there are far too many scenes in public restrooms. One involves a confrontation with Michael Cera as a pathetic (and not very convincing) hustler. The scene one most would prefer to forget is a horrific childbirth scene Foundas compares to Eraserhead's that may not really be happening (one certainly hopes not). By this point, the editing has become increasingly surreal, with scenes often hovering uneasily between dream, waking nightmare, and possible flashback. The road eventually leads toward Los Angeles and home, where The Comedian has a special gig for the birthday party of "a well-known celebrity." Here his existential despair leads, under pressure, to a final moment of total emotional meltdown.

Whether Alverson is one to watch or one to avoid, he clearly represents a bold and distinctive personality in the US indie film world, albeit not quite a fully formed one. As the Guardian's Jordan Hoffman writes of his feelings about Entertainment, "I’m still not sure if I should be laughing, crying, yawning or walking out of the cinema. Neither, perhaps, are the film-makers." That's not the way it needs to be.

Entertainment, 110 mins., debuted at Sundance 2015. Also reviewed by John DeFore for Hollywood Reporter. It was screened for this review as part of the March 2015 New Directors/New Films series, where it was the closing night film.


GREGG TURKINGTON IN ENTERTAINMENT

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.