The Comedy was reportedly shot in 15 days, using only an 18-20 page treatment, with the lion's share of the film emerging from improvisation. This is not exactly surprising, given the players involved, but it's still impressive, because every instant of The Comedy feels perfectly controlled. This isn't an aimless indie curiosity like The Brown Bunny or Gerry; even though it's a film without much in the way of dramatic conflict or rising action, it still has a laser-beam sense of focus, and never wastes a single second.
The Comedy is the "story" of Swanson, an aging, terminally jaded Williamsburg hipster facing the imminent death of his wealthy father. Swanson passes his time lounging on his boat, taking jobs he doesn't need, and engaging in endless competition with his "friends" to see who is the most disaffected. (The scare quotes are practically mandatory here, as saying this film features a story or friendship would be simply inaccurate, like saying it's a documentary about women in Afghanistan.)
In some ways, the film that The Comedy most reminds me of is Man Bites Dog, a similarly warped character study that also mixed moments of jet-black humor with grotesque sociopathy. The only thing missing is Man Bites Dog's startling bursts of violence, but The Comedy is no less brutal for their absence. Ironically (ironically), Ben, the serial killer protagonist of Man Bites Dog, ends up being much more likeable than Swanson.
At times, The Comedy also reminded me of the excellent Martha Marcy May Marlene, as both films drift leisurely through a series of uncomfortable moments that gradually cohere into a profile of a deeply damaged person. They're also both anchored by an astonishing central performance.
The role of Swanson was tailored for Heidecker by director Rick Alverson, who thought the way that Heidecker exploited "awkwardness" with comedic partner-in-crime Eric Wareheim (also in the film) would perfectly suit the character of Swanson. Many critical responses to the film have focused on the idea that Heidecker is somehow skewering his own demographic, but I think a crucial point is missed here.
The M.O. of Heidecker and Wareheim's comedy (both on Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! and their even-better prior offering, Tom Goes To the Mayor) is absurdity. One of the best recurring sketches on Tim and Eric is the saga of Carol, a lonely secretary (Wareheim) who is hopelessly in love with her ludicrously callous boss (Heidecker). Carol's desperate, unrequited love and her boss's casual cruelty are both rendered in the most exaggerated possible terms.
Bathos is a key element of the show, as exalted sentiments and emotional rawness always arrive in the most ridiculous manner possible (often during advertisements and infomercials). But Tim & Eric is never purely about mocking its characters, no matter how pathetic they are: a figure like Dr. Steve Brule remains stubbornly lovable, partly because of what a screw-up he is.
The Comedy is different. Swanson's sensibility is pure schadenfreude, verging on sociopathy, and while his jaded, vacuous self-absorption may seem exaggerated, it's really not. Nothing that happens in the film seems beyond the pale, or enters into the realm of surreality where Tim and Eric takes place. It's all painfully real, and that's what it makes it so effectively off-putting.
There's a great quote from the blogger Bike Snob NYC (an early adopter when it comes to mocking hipsters) that has stuck with me. In response to a Craigslist "missed connections" posting by a Williamsburg aesthete, he wrote:
You know, I'm not one of these people who whines about the gentrification of New York City, and I suspect that many of those who do complain about it weren't around to experience the theft, violence, and urine first-hand. (Well, the urine's still around, so you can sample that all you want.) That said, there is a price to pay for a better quality of life, and that price comes in the form of giddy, puckish, whimsical, kite-flying dandies like you. Tragically, now that the sharp corners have been padded and the electrical outlets have been child-proofed, Brooklyn has become a giant romper room for latent adolescents who are free to traipse about at all hours unmolested. So I find myself conflicted. I don't want another crime wave, yet I do want one to come crashing down on you like a tsunami on a big wave surfer.
Such is the experience of watching Swanson; you're constantly waiting for somebody to kick his ass. But there is also real pathos in The Comedy, albeit of a very muted kind: a moment of tenderness between Swanson and his sister-in-law, or (spoiler alert) the film's final scene, a genuinely warm vignette of Swanson frolicking with a little boy on the beach.
It's a credit to Alverson that he includes these scenes, allowing them to complicate the central character—even if only slightly. It makes the film more than just a screed about the vacuousness of the shopworn hipster archetype, and it certainly separates it from the day-glo, public-access nightmare of Tim and Eric.
But it's Heidecker, the connoisseur of the absurd, who really makes this film. His performance here is a revelation: there are elements of his other characters, but Swanson is his own man, without precedent or ancestor. And while there's none of Tim and Eric's funhouse exaggeration to blunt the character's sharp edges, there's also a profound sense of loss lying just behind his aloof, stubbly mask.
Swanson is a kind of inverted Patrick Bateman: where the American Psycho antihero was a psychopath passing himself off as human, Swanson is a human being impersonating a perfectly emotionless observer, assuming an archly ironic stance towards all of existence. He treats the world like a playground for his own amusement, but nothing that he does (save perhaps playing in the surf at the end) is ever actually fun. It's a haunting, tour de force performance.
The Comedy also feels like a requiem for a moment that's already passing away. As a figure of widespread cultural disdain, the ironic hipster is beginning to be supplanted by newer, decidedly un-ironic characters: the hysterical Tumblr blogger, the "brony", the Men's Rights Activist. The best proof that irony as a reigning mode is passing away is how much attention is being paid to it—and after The Comedy, it's hard to imagine that there's even much left to say.
