It must have been quite a challenge to pull this one off, and do it so well. Comedian-actor-writer director Mike Birbiglia has managed to make a movie that has a serious story at its center, but is funny throughout, and maintains a focus on the group of improvisational performers who are constantly seen practicing that freewheeling art form -- in front of audiences -- even though they're working from a tightly written script.
"Don't Think Twice" refers to the mindset improv artists must maintain in order to stay fresh and funny. It's a kind of "go with the flow, live in the moment" attitude."
Birbiglia, who wrote and directed and costars, along with a quintet of gifted actors, spent many years getting his craft down at the improv school and theater Upright Citizens Brigade. He hasn't come out and said this is an autobiographical story, but there's not much doubt that a good deal of what goes on in the film has happened to people similar to these characters.
It's about a long-running stage troop called the Commune, a sextet of pals that was started by Miles (Birbiglia) 11 years earlier. They do shows that demand and easily get audience participation ("Call out a subject, and we'll riff on it.") at a small theater space in New York, and draw decent-sized crowds because they're attuned to each other's strengths, and they're good at what they do. On top of that, because they just eke by financially, working bits and pieces of day jobs, most of them share a small apartment space, although two of them are a romantic item, and one lives with her rich parents.
But, and here's where it gets really interesting, they've probably been doing this, at this level, for too long. They're all dreamers who want to take the next step up, especially Miles, who created the whole thing and even trained some of them, and are hankering to be discovered by the hot national TV show "Weekend Live," a hardly disguised fictional version of "Saturday Night Live," complete with a Lorne Michaels-like producer.
Things get complicated when, after seeing the group do a show, one of the scouts from "Weekend Live" invites two of the members to audition, to go for the gold. Only one of them grabs at the offer, and the audition goes so well, that TV cast soon grows by one. The film turns into a study of what happens when, out of all the struggling, hopeful people in the Commune, only one manages to get that boost.
Birbiglia offers up what might happen to the group dynamic in that situation, and while the five remaining members must continue to be funny each night on the stage, there's emotional turmoil going inside each of them, especially in Miles, who's unable to hide the jealousy that's been unleashed.
Since the one who makes it to TV show is half of the couple within the group, there's a layer of tension added to that relationship. To make things even worse, the building that houses their small theater is being sold, and if the Commune is to continue, they have to find a new space.
Yet Birbiglia and his cast still regularly manage to infuse the film with funny, inventive bits, while the accompanying stress, some of it due to the group's shaky grounds, some due to different personal crises, keeps getting in the way of everything. It all ends on a more positive note than anyone watching could expect, and as the credits roll, it ends on the familiar notes of the Bob Dylan song that gives the film its name.
-- Ed Symkus covers movies for More Content Now.
"Don't Think Twice"
Written and directed by Mie Birbiglia
With Mike Birbiglia, Keegan-Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs, Chris Gethard, Kate Micucci, Tami Sagher
Rated R
