Review by Mike Martin
Stars Stephen McCole, Malcolm Shields, Jo Hartley,
Micaiah Dring, Niall Greig Fulton, Tom Jude,
Andrew Neil, Laura Keenan, Alan Marsh
Written by Justin Molotnikov
Certification UK 18
Runtime 103 minutes
Directed by Justin Molotnikov
There’s nothing particularly wrong with Crying With Laughter – but there’s nothing particularly wrong with the bus ticket it took me to get to the screening either. It did its job, but I won’t be reading it or saving it as a keepsake, and the film itself seems equally without any lasting value. It’s funded by the National Lottery and BBC Scotland, so in other words you’ve already paid for it. Does it pay back in kind? No, not really – you could even haul out the argument about public money being better spent on kidney machines.
Set in the murky world of comedy clubs in Edinburgh, it centres around comedian Joey Frisk (McCole), who is talented, sharp and clearly bright, but has problems. He’s broke, he owes the landlord cash, he has a booze and coke habit and he has a young daughter with an estranged wife. Into his life comes an old school pal, Frank (Shields), who has all the hallmarks of a stalker, complete with stary eyes. Frank offers to help Joey out, gives him a place to stay when his landlord kicks him out, and looks after his daughter.
Clearly there’s a catch, but all it seems to be is for Joey to escort Frank to an old boys’ reunion. Joey reluctantly agrees, and of course the ‘reunion’ is not quite the one he had in mind. Quite a bit of plot is played out before Joey uses it all to create some new material which he needs to impress a visiting American comedy talent scout. Without wishing to give away the ending, if I see another film about child abuse I swear I’ll scream. Every time a ‘secret’ is mentioned in a movie, nine times out of 10 it’s child abuse – and yet the one film that tackled it successfully last year, Let The Right One In, never mentioned it. It’s the default setting for so many dramas now, presumably because it’s an easy way to get the audience on the side of the protagonists. It’s becoming a cheap trick, and this does little to justify its very serious theme.
There’s some solid performances here, especially McCole in the tricky lead, and a couple of nice shots of Edinburgh, but this could easily have been made as a decent TV drama, which seems its natural habitat. On the big screen it looks overstretched.