We got into a discussion this week at my job about the state of American film comedy.  Some of my co-workers were insisting that I see the new Will Ferrell movie, The Campaign, and, honestly, I don’t think I’ve got the gumption to sit through it.  Per their requests, I had seen Seth MacFarlane’s randy, plush toy comedy, Ted, a few weeks prior, and while I didn’t find Ted to be an awful movie by any stretch, I have to admit that I didn’t find much of it very funny at all.

So, we were talking about American film comedy, and I started to ruminate on this question: What was the last great American comedy?  Was it Bridesmaids?  That was almost a year and a half ago.  Was it The Hangover?  That was nearly two and a half years ago.

Here’s a list of comedies that have been released this year:  21 Jump Street, That’s My Boy, Ted, The Campaign, Men in Black 3, American Reunion, Wanderlust, The Three Stooges, Mirror Mirror, The Dictator, Project X, This Means War, The Five-Year Engagement, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Dark Shadows, The Watch, Think Like a Man.  That’s just a sad, little list.

So, what’s gone wrong?  Why are American film comedies so mediocre?

I have a theory:

It’s kind of obtuse, but essentially I think that most people making comedic films today don’t understand they are making a feature film.  And, making a feature film has some basic needs that are part of the process.  First of all, a feature film needs to tell a story.  More specifically, a feature film needs to tell a story that can sustain a running time of at least 90 minutes.  Most comedies today feel like a series of sketches that are loosely strung together.  Second, a feature film needs interesting characters.  More specifically, a feature film needs characters that have arcs.  These are characters who are dynamic, who are changed by the events in the movie.  Most film comedies today can’t be bothered to have that kind of depth of character.  They have personas, not characters.  Third, a feature film needs to have subtext.  A great film has a point of view; it’s about something.  There is symbolism in play.  There are ideas at work.  The filmmakers have something bigger than the plot they want to communicate to the audience.  Most comedies don’t have any satirical edge, no bigger thoughts in them at all.  I would even argue that in our current social/political climate, most filmmakers aren’t at all interested in providing any subtext.

It’s interesting that while most people look at comedy as something inferior to drama, comedy filmmakers seem to be affirming that point by making films that are void of any story or interesting subtext, as if a good comedy doesn’t need these things.

Most comedians today are coming up through schools that teach improvisational comedy.  If you assemble a who’s who of American comedians, they are people who came up through Second City or The Groundlings or ImprovOlympic or Upright Citizens Brigade.  I don’t dislike improv comedy.  Far from it.  Well executed improvisation is the coolest kind of magic trick there is.  Steve Carell, Tina Fey, Paul Shafer, Stephen Colbert, Paul Ruebens, Phil Hartman, Bill Murray, Kathy Griffin, Alan Arkin, Harold Ramis, George Wendt, Joan Rivers, Peter Boyle, John Belushi, Jeff Garlin, Melissa McCarthy, Cheryl Hines, Bob Odenkirk (Better Call Saul!), Jane Lynch, Jennifer Coolidge, Chris Farley.  That’s just a small list of vital artists who’ve trained in this art form.

But, improv does create a couple of things that have really harmed feature film comedy.

First of all, the end game for most improvisers is to be cast on Saturday Night Live.  In fact, many improv schools use improv as a means of creating characters suitable for sketch comedy.  In other words, most of our comedy minds are being taught to think of things as an 8-minute sketch.  This goes a long way to explain why feature comedies can’t tell a coherent story that sustains its run time.

Second, improv training has created a situation in which actors are expected to make a weak script funny by riffing on set each day.  Who needs a good, polished screenplay?  We’ll just make it work on set by hiring actors who can be funny on the day.  This would explain why so many film comedies today have such a lack of character depth.  In some cases, all of this mad ad libbing results in characters with no consistent behavior.  They’re just trying desperately to be funny. And, desperate is rarely funny.

I think that’s why many of these films play better on television than they do in movie theaters.  I remember seeing Will Ferrell’s movie, Step Brothers, in a theater and just despising it, only to kind of warm to it a little bit when I saw it later on TV. Seeing it in little, 15-minute increments takes away how badly it didn’t work as an 85-minute movie.  Seeing it on TV helped to zero in on some of the more subtle bits of improv that populate the film.

Correspondingly, it turns out we’re kind of in a golden age for TV comedies.  Parks and Recreation, The Office (both versions, focusing on the US early seasons), Curb Your Enthusiasm, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Archer, Louie, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Modern Family, South Park, the Stewart/Colbert tandem.  Hell, I really like The Big Bang Theory, and I haven’t liked a multi-camera sitcom in a long time.  And, I would argue that any of these shows offer more laughs than any screen comedy released this year.  I think it’s not that much of a stretch for people trained in writing 8-minute sketches to come up with 22-minute stories to tell.  Curb Your Enthusiasm is largely improvised, but it’s also intricately plotted.

I am a huge fan of Albert Brooks’ work as both a stand-up comedian, an actor, and a filmmaker.  One of my favorite comedies of all time is his 1984 film Lost in America.  The great thing about that film is not only is it gut-bustingly funny with many now classic scenes, it’s actually about something — the selfishness and greed of the Reagan 1980s.

Another great film comedy example is the Dustin Hoffman comedy Tootsie from 1981.  Famously, Hoffman plays an unemployed actor who dresses in drag in order to be cast as an actress on a TV soap opera.  Is it funny?  Yup.  Does it tell an interesting story?  Yup.  Does it have something to say about the way women are treated in society?  Yup.  I remember seeing an interview with Hoffman where he broke down and wept talking about the impact making that film had on him personally.  It turns out he didn’t make a very attractive woman, and in the interview he laments all the interesting women he might have met but didn’t give them the time of day, because they weren’t conventionally attractive.  It’s a pretty powerful movie, and it’s also funny as hell.  Bonus: Bill Murray is in it!

What we need today are comedy writers who understand film.  Woody Allen has written many classic comedies, and despite his beginnings as a stand-up comedian, Woody went to film school and NYU and understood story structure.  

I’d love to see a guy like Patton Oswalt try his hand at screenwriting.  Patton, if you’re reading this (yeah, right), it’s time to get to work!