It’s Kind Of A Funny Story

I was browsing the videos at the store and stumbled upon another movie by accident, that turned out to be good.

“It’s Kind Of A Funny Story”. It’s a little weak in starpower but the characters make up for it.

The movie centers around a 16-year old guy named Craig. He has depression and is stressed out by family relationships and school. He checks himself into a psychiatric hospital for five days where he befriends five patients each of whom have various mental disorders. He builds a relationship with each and by the end of the movie all the patients begin to overcome their stresses.

The highlight of the movie is the song “Under Pressure”. The patients are in a group session and each is asked to play a musical instrument. Most have no musical abilities, including Craig. The doctor asks Craig to come to the front of the class to sing! The scene switches to Craig’s imagination, where all the patients are dressed like extreme rock stars, performing the David Bowie/Queen song under the lights, all rockin’ out, in their right minds. It’s brilliant!

On the down side, there’s a bit of language junk in the movie. Most movies have profanity or sex scenes that are over the line for me and usually those scenes could have been toned down without breaking the continuity of the story. Such is the case here.

However, the character development makes up for the junk. Each of the personalities are enjoyable people and their mental disorders are obvious, real and handled with respect.

As someone with depression, which is a mental illness, this movie spoke to me differently than it might have, had I not acquired this disease. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.

Here’s the trailer.