Parents' Guide to I Used to Be Funny

So much of I Used to Be Funny has the easy and clever repartee of such engaging character studies as the HBO dramedy Somebody Somewhere. Here amid snarky but lovable standup comics is a believable dynamic, a threesome of friends who care for each other and seem real. The characters are warm and self-deprecating, embracing their flaws and sharing them aloud. But as the traumatized Sam decides she's going to rouse herself from her understandably depressive state to find the missing Brooke—without the assistance of authorities and without a sensible assessment of the risk—it breaks the magic the movie has up to that point captured us with. When Sam explains that she seeks out Brooke's company because she "is the one person who doesn't pity me; she hates me," it doesn't ring true. Especially after Brooke had turned her love for Sam into antagonism because she never accepted the reality of her father's violent attack. It makes Sam's unrelenting quest to find Brooke seem questionable.

When Sam learns Brooke is holed up with an older drug dealer, calling for help would've been far more sensible than barging in alone. Probably the greatest flaw here is the scene marking Sam's return to the stage, without any indication of how she overcame her entrenched fears and suddenly went from a depressed person who couldn't shower or leave the house for a couple of years to the confident woman we see in the last scene.