She’s Funny That Way, Review: Screwball sex comedy, the Bogdanovich way

In Ernst Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown (1946), Charles Boyer, playing Adam Belinski, says to Jennifer Jones, “In Hyde Park, some people like to feed nuts to the squirrels. But if it makes you happy to feed squirrels to the nuts, who am I to say nuts to the squirrels?” Writer-director Peter Bogdanovich liked this phrase so much, that he made it the title for his latest film, included an acknowledged clip of the famous scene, and wrote entire sequences woven around this apparently profound piece of philosophy. Only, he substituted London’s Hyde Park with New York’s Central Park. Then, his American well-wishers felt the adult film might be taken for a children’s fairy-tale, while his European contacts told him that the strange title would be tough to translate. So, he remembered Frank Sinatra’s 1943 rendition of a 1928 song, and found a replacement for the nutty title. The song goes:

'Not much to look at, nothing to see / Just glad I'm living and lucky to be /

I've got a woman crazy for me / She's funny that way.'

Written in 1999-2000, with a 1970s feel to it, inspired by the Neil Simon plays of the 50s-70s most of which were turned into films, with a dash of Woody Allen, She’s Funny That Way is warm and satirical at the same time, but falling just short of the class that early Bogdanovich films belonged to. It is a sex comedy with almost no sex, and is enacted in a stage production style, perhaps because it is about a series of events, mainly fixations, mix-ups and coincidences, during a Broadway theatre production. At just over 90 minutes, the film keeps you amused all along, and occasionally makes you laugh-out-loud, but, sadly, it’s all over before you really begin to savour the pastiche.

A Broadway director, Arnold Albertson (Owen Wilson), married, and a father of two, arrives in New York, to conduct rehearsals and stage a play, starring a British screen star, Seth Gilbert (Rhys Ifans). His family is expected to join him the next day. Delta, his wife (Kathryn Hahn), is playing a major role in the play. He calls for a young escort (read prostitute) Izzy (Imogen Poots), who dreams of becoming an actress, and whose parents (Richard Lewis and Cybill Shepherd) are blissfully unaware that their daughter is a call-girl. After Arnold pays her a huge amount, asking her to quit her profession, she passes an audition lands a part in his own play, the very next day. The playwright Josh (Will Forte) falls in love with her, even though he's actually dating her therapist, Jane (Jennifer Aniston), with whom he has just had a massive quarrel. Confused? The merry-go-round has just begun! 

Bogdanovich wrote the script with his then wife, Louise Stratten, at the turn of the century. Eight years after the death of his first wife, Dorothy Stratten, he had married her little sister, Louise. He and Louise Stratten divorced in 2000. While writing the script, Bogdanovich was inspired by an incident in Singapore during the time he was filming Saint Jack in 1978, where he interacted with many prostitutes, after hiring them as extras for his film. He would give them more money than their ‘salary’, for them to leave the prostitution business. The original cast had Bogdanovich discoveries John Ritter and Cybill Shepherd (also his muse) as the married couple, with Stratten playing the prostitute. Ritter died in 2003, and Bogdanovich put the project on hold. In 2010, protégés of Bogdanovich, directors Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach, came aboard as executive producers. It took these two, and 24 others, to produce the film. Director, producer, writer, actor, film critic, and author Bogdanovich, who is 76 now, writes a blog called, guess…Blogdanovich! And one must remember that he is more than an itinerant actor. In his own words, “I was 16 when I started to work with Stella Adler, but I had to lie about my age and say I was 18, because you had to be 18 to get into her class. I studied with her for four years, until I was about 20.”

Script-wise, it is a thin premise. One client obsessed with a prostitute, another gifting her $30,000 to quit the trade, a third preferring her over his high-strung psychiatrist girl-friend, and a medley of man-woman relationship tracks, criss-crossing at the drop of a hat (there’s a scene about a hat too!) make for a whacky, screwball comedy, as evident in the “Quick! Hide in the bathroom,” scenes. Problem is Bogdanovich and Stratten want to keep it realistic too, and bring in a lot of language-humour of the pseudo-intellectual kind, perhaps in an attempt to strike a balance. Identities and relations of the characters are cleverly introduced and intertwined, while the now famous Izzy being interviewed by a sour, hard-nosed film journalist called Judy, is a well-designed ploy to move the story along in flashbacks, peppering it with sarcasm. It works for the first few times, and then loses impact, though.  

Coming from the man who made The Last Picture Show, What’s Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon, this film is more of a dual take-off on both Hollywood and Broadway (imagine a call girl, who wants to get away from the sordid profession and start a career as an actress, landing her first role as that of a prostitute!), with the critic in Peter Bogdanovich holding his tongue firmly in cheek. Locales, entries and exits are designed in a very much drama style (Noises Off hangover?), while cinematic language is well-employed in scenes like the off-screen hot embraces and kisses between Delta and Seth during a rehearsal, with only Arnold’s face, in rapid jump cuts, to suggest his outrage, and the taxi-ride scene. Casting and performances are uniformly above par, with the judge and the detective standing out. Colourful and youthful cartoon fonts are used in the titles, even though there is only one character in the film who is really young, and the theme is clearly adult.

As Arnold, Owen Wilson (Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Shanghai Noon, Wedding Crashers) is an innovative bit of casting, and came in courtesy Wes Anderson. Known as a funny man, he showed how over-sensitive he was in real life when he attempted suicide shortly after his split from his You, Me and Dupree co-star Kate Hudson. First thing you notice about him is his broken, bumpy nose. He broke it twice, once in a high school scuffle and the second time playing football. Oddly, there is no reference to his nose in the long conversations he has with the hooker. Earning sympathy is spite of his ‘imperfections’, the role is nothing for Wilson to really write home about. Imogen Poots (28 Weeks, Cracks, Waking Madison, Solitary Man), lisp and British-Brooklyn amalgam accents included, is a bold actress with a completely, and quite credibly, ambivalent part.

Rhys Ifans (the surname is the Welsh spelling of Evans) was first noticed in Twin Town, now a cult black comedy. This was followed by Notting Hill and Hannibal Rising. Not a conventional good-looker, and a miscast at first sight, Rhys has a great sense of timing. Kathryn Hahn is the character you empathise most with, and applaud, when she does things that make her husband squirm. Cybill Shepherd (now 65, debut-The Last Picture Show by Bogdanovich, Do You Believe?, Taxi Driver) has a smallish role, as does Richard Lewis.

Jennifer Aniston (The Break-Up, Horrible Bosses 1 and 2, Cake, Marley & Me—with Owen Wilson, He's Just Not That into You) gets into her character, and even pulls off the hackneyed, predictable, “I shouldn’t be telling you this…” scene. Will Forte has the requisite blank face to fit into various modes, while George Morfogen as his detective father gets a few laughs too. Judy is played by Illeana Douglas (GoodFellas, Cape Fear, To Die For), who is the grand-daughter of legendary director Melvyn Douglas. Perfectly made-up for the part, she seems to revel in acerbic poking. Austin Pendleton (What’s Up Doc?) as Judge Pendergast is a delight. Watch out for Quentin Tarantino, another Bogdanovich acolyte, play himself, and Tatum O’Neal, as a waitress.

She’s Funny That Way does not deliver that extra something that you keep expecting. But it’s fun, nevertheless, an existentialist reworking of classic sex comedies, the Peter Bogdanovich way.

Rating: ***

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eJs7ScPl2M