Il commediante

Here is one more somewhat-unknown film I wish got more notice, although I'm not sure how many would like it because it's so different. It's a bizarre combination of humor and tragedy, of supernatural and straight drama. It's just an odd mix, but I find it very, very interesting and I've seen it three times, equally fascinated each time.

The movie goes back and forth between drama and comedy which makes unsettling for some viewers, but not me. It kept me on my toes, so to speak, even with those multiple viewings. Also in here is another example of how good comedians can be in dramatic roles, in this case, veteran comic Jerry Lewis. Oliver Platt plays his son, and does an outstanding job as the main figure in this film. The comedy is really provided by others, most notably the most tragic figure in the film: "Jack Parker," effectively played by Lee Evans.

There is really is no way to adequately explain this strange film in a few paragraphs. I would just say if you are looking for something different, give this a try. And stay with it, even if the first half hour is not to your liking. You will be rewarded.

Not really a comedy - more a surreal, sometimes weirdly comic piece about comedians, about families, about the awfulness of having a famous father, about genius, about the problem of what makes a comic funny, about the sublime sadness of failure. Lee Evans is absolutely haunting as the tortured comic genius, the natural comic who is so purely a comedian that he can barely communicate except in gags, yet who will never be allowed to perform in public because of his dark past. Leslie Caron is heart-rending as his mother, a brave, faded French beauty stranded for ever singing mildly risque songs in Blackpool pubs, and their tender scenes together are for me the best thing in the whole film.

The whole cast is incredible...right down to Oliver Reed camping it up gloriously in a bizarre sub-plot which at first I thought might be part of the Evans' character's fevered imagination. It is a movie absolutely crammed with magic but in one of my favourite scenes, Oliver Platt arrives in Blackpool and instantly sees it peopled with characters from Donald McGill postcards - fat ladies, saucy girls with flouncy skirts, burly men. The ending is a bit wonky and looks to my eye to have been changed from a tragic one to a "happy" one to please audiences. In the two opening sequences, both Evans and Platt utter the words "I'm going to die" in very different circumstances, and mean very different things, and other variations on the theme of death and laughter follow - all this seemed to be pointing down a much darker alleyway than the one we got. Doesn't matter, though. Still a great movie.

When I first saw this film I thought that it was brilliant. At first it seemed to have an amateurish quality about it, but this turned out not to be true. What I thought was amateurish about it turned out to be the sound. The ever present ocean seems to add to the sound quality as if the viewer were really there, experiencing what actually happened.

This is undoubtedly one of Oliver Platt's best roles. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the intriguing Mr.Fawkes. Lee Evans was also unbelievably riveting in his portrayal as the mentally disturbed young man.

This film is very representative of the small town in Britain with it's quiet undisturbed population that seems to be frozen in time, in contrast to Fawkes's father's life in America, which is busy and ever-changing, where the most important thing in life is money, as opposed to memories being just as important back in the small British town.

The best part of the film is watching (in small parts) the unravelling of the horrific event that had happened so many years before and turned the young man (played by Lee Evans) into the person he is today.

A riveting watch. See it.

I had seen the standard shots of this film when it came out and thought that the comedy seemed pretty bad - which put me off seeing it in the cinema.

However, now that it's been on TV I would like to recommend it to anyone who wants to see a film which has an original story, interesting characters, unusual settings, great acting, great photography.... generally the opposite of the usual Hollywood fare I usually have to suffer because of my friends.

So, to sum up, it's been marketed wrongly - this is not a film which you should see for a laugh; it's a film which constantly surprises - not least in dramatic turns in the story.

Loved it - 9/10

I do have to say from the outset that I really like this film, disjointed though it is, perhaps because it is so different. This is a story of a broken family and hidden secrets - Tommy Fawkes goes to Blackpool, once one of the world's showbiz capitals, to learn how to be funny; once there he finds a duo (played by veteran British comics Freddie Davies and George Carl) who he thinks have stolen his famous dad's act - but are things really as they seem? Jack Parker is a Blackpool born lad with the innate ability to be creatively humorous (Lee Evans is excellent in this role) while lacking in the social skills to survive in the real world.

Against this backdrop is something about mysterious eggs which hold some mystical secret or other (giving Oliver Reed yet another strange role as the oddball Dolly). The really interesting aspects of the story are the skeletons in the closet that bring Jack's mother (Leslie Caron) and Tommy's father (Jerry Lewis) together again. The strongest scenes though are the ones which truly shock - the flashback outlining the tragedy that has affected Jack's life, and the final few sequences in the show arena.

'Funny Bones' may be hard to fathom but I think it repays attention by giving its audience something a bit unexpected - plus some great performances along the way.