I haven't gone into a film with zero expectations and laughed so hard since I picked up Idiocracy in a bargain bin in college over a decade ago (and I'm pretty sure their budget was exponentially larger for Idiocracy). With improv-style, lower budget comedies I typically cringe more than I laugh - but the few times I felt the jokes were getting into cringe territory here, I was still laughing (shamefully), and the Director and Actors instinctively seemed to know where to draw the line. Turns out, some of those scenes even led to hilarious payoffs later in the film.
All in all, this film actually seems to almost have a sense of self-awareness. The talented individuals involved with this production seem to be acutely aware of how similar films in their genre are typically received, and they inherently know the difference between cohesive comedy versus simply recording improv actors go off on tangents or long rants. Even the epilogue scripts hilariously poked some fun at their own film. I think these individuals understood the mantra "don't take life too seriously, or you'll never get out alive".
The last thing I'll say is that most improv comedies or lower budget comedies I see are funny to a point, right up until they fall off a cliff about halfway through and then putter out to an ending that tries to make some sense of what we saw. That is not the case with Chasing Molly. Even though many will consider this an "improv comedy" and it definitely has some of that off-the-cuff feel, there IS actually a plot that holds true throughout the film and the best jokes are the ones that have been slowly built up throughout the film. The overall plot probably could have been conceived in a single session; but the acting, directing, editing, and written dialogue of this film are actually what make it shine the brightest in a crowded field. I still come away thinking of Idiocracy for some reason - not because the films are necessarily similar, but because they evoked very similar surprise reactions from me; and I truly believe this talented group of individuals are future household names in the making, and we are blessed to be able to witness their ascension!
