This Is Not a Comedy

Movie review by Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media
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Common Sense says

age 14+

Unemployed comedian searches for meaning; language.

NR 2022 105 minutes
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  • This is Not a Comedy Movie: Scene # 1
  • This is Not a Comedy Movie: Scene # 2
  • This is Not a Comedy Movie: Scene # 3

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A Lot or a Little?

The parents' guide to what's in this movie.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that This Is Not a Comedy is an idiosyncratic feature about a hapless, unfunny, and unemployed comedian who can't find meaning in life. The inevitability of death and the hope for "transcendence" seems to be the theme, which is why he says yes when a friend asks if he'll donate sperm so she can have a baby. Language includes "f--k," "s--t," "ass," "bitch," "bastard," "hell," and "damn." Adults drink alcohol. A man is informed his sperm is slow. A woman may have committed suicide. A man may have had a heart attack. A sick man dies in his bed. In Spanish with English subtitles.

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What's the Story?

In THIS IS NOT A COMEDY, Gabriel (Gabriel Nuncio, cowriter and codirector as well) is an unemployed comedian with a stage routine that isn't funny and a movie treatment about a woman who travels to Mars, for reasons not fully explained. He dates a woman who walks around with a ukulele and believes she's in touch with aliens. A close female friend asks him to donate sperm so she can have a baby at 39, making it clear she doesn't want him to participate as a father and it would be hard to imagine anyone less prepared to perform the responsible tasks of parenthood. With nothing else going on in his life, apart from his frequent calls to the locksmith as he locks himself out of his place over and over, he seems sure that fatherhood will give his empty existence some purpose. He attends a weird funeral. He is dragged into a breakup between his gay friends, which results in an inexplicable dance in the middle of the night. He seems to be a person incapable of learning from experience. He's a bad listener (someone dies while he obliviously delivers a dull monologue). At any given moment in the narrative, it's difficult to tell if we are in the present, the past, or some imaginary place in his mind. A woman in a space suit sits on his bed now and then, suggesting that not everything we see is actually happening.

Is It Any Good?

This Is Not a Comedy feels undercooked. It's as if the writer couldn't make up his mind about whether to write a comedy or a drama and instead created a pointless yarn without beginning or end, about nothing. And, unlike Seinfeld, not in a good way. A woman who is supposedly his good friend asks him to donate sperm so she can have a child. It's not credible that this man has a good friend. And no one who knows him well would consider him a decent prospect for sperm donation, never mind fatherhood (he lost his dog once, his keys repeatedly, and his rent is overdue). Perhaps she does know him -- she only wants his sperm, not his parental participation. But unreliable and flaky as he is, displaying no self-awareness, he insists on paying for half of the venture, even though he has no money and isn't looking for a job.

Imagine the nerdy Woody Allen character of the 1970s (a persona with its own problems) but without humor or cleverness to redeem his ineptitude. Flashbacks are indistinguishable from present-day and if that was deliberate, it doesn't add a thing to the story apart from unnecessary confusion. There's no dramatic arc (leaving us uninvolved) and no action (leaving us bored) and no humor (leaving us shaking our heads at what we're supposed to think of the lifeless comedian who can't hold onto his dog or his keys). It's as if the filmmakers figured they could get away with not doing the necessary work to make this cogent and engrossing, hoping instead that everything would somehow just hang together. The story of a man who is unsuccessful doesn't on its own criticize a society that values achievement. The emptiness of this man doesn't serve any purpose. Protagonists of many comedies are either stuck or dumb (and dumber), but the humor gets us through. Not here.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how filmmakers work against the audience when they jump around in time without explaining. Is this narrative hard to follow? Why or why not?

  • Does it seem as if Gabriel has unrealistic expectations for his career and his life? Why or why not?

  • What attitude does the film have about a woman who says she's in touch with aliens?

Movie Details

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