Movie Review: It's Kind Of a Funny Story

So i've recently submitted to the idea that i am going to fail the first course of my life. Now i know what you're thinking..."what a quitter"...and you're absolutely right, i am quitting. Not because i'm dumb, or lazy, but because at this current juncture in my life i'm just not equipped to learn the material for this class in the manner that it is being presented. Lack of structure...poor teaching technique...poor time management...blah blah blah. The story here isn't about me...or maybe it is. The current events of my life have left me feeling rather down, or depressed as medical professionals would like to put it, and i thought "hey, why not watch some movies about kids who are depressed and the way they handled it"...first up was It's Kind of a Funny Story starring Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) and Emma Roberts (Twelve).





The story is about a depressed teenager who is contemplating suicide, but doesn't have the balls to go thru with it, and is desperately looking for someone to talk him out of it. Unfortunately the usual outlets (friends and parents) don't have any great advice for him, so in a last ditch effort he has himself committed to an adult psychiatric ward, and as you can assume, a teenager mixed in amongst crazy adults (one of whom is Zach) can only lead to lots of laughs. I must admit that the only reason i wanted to see this movie at all was because of Zach. Say what you will about him playing the same character in every movie, but the dude is funny, PERIOD!! And not in a Jim Carrey the Mask kind of way either (if you don't believe me watch Due Date, he completely crushed that role). I won't ruin the movie by telling you that he ultimately kills himself...OOPS!! LOL!! But the movie got me to thinking about my personal struggles in my professional and personal life. And as the old cliche goes, i came to realize that no matter how bad i think i have it, there is someone out there worse off than me. However, more importantly it taught me that, i don't really care how bad the next person has it, cause their problems aren't mine, and knowing that someone else is suffering worse isn't going to help me pass this class, so i'm still going to fail, but now i'm going to fail knowing that just because i'm quitting with respect to this course, doesn't mean you have to quit at life in general. So much like the Knicks last night against the Celtics, i'm gonna take the "L", but i'm going to come back refocused next semester (albeit $700 lighter) and climb this hurdle. The movie is very good, and i would definitely recommend it to someone that is struggling with anything in their life. Sure it doesn't have any Hollywood heavyweights in the cast, but then again, neither does your life...