This Movie Illustrates Two IMDB Types Admirably

In browsing through many of the posts here, it's surprising how strongly this film's board attracted two particular types of IMDB poster:

1) "I didn't laugh out loud, therefore it was not comedy!"

I don't know about you guys, but I see this type of beast on Wes Anderson boards, Paul Thomas Anderson boards... Woody Allen boards... if it isn't slapstick designed to evoke belly laughs, this type is going to be there informing every other person that saw the film that bit *wasn't*, in fact, a funny movie, because they themselves didn't laugh... and therefore it wasn't a comedy. Mistaking one's personal outlook for an overall summation of a film is a common passtime on IMDB, but it seems rampant on such quirky films as this.

As a side note, it also spawned a lot of folks responding that they didn't laugh "out loud", either, but they still found the film funny - to which the immediate resonse was, in many cases, "No, if you dind't laugh out loud, you didn't find it funny...". One guy even cited the dictionary definition of "hilarity". (And, in case you couldn't tell from the fellow citing a literal definition while attacking a film which focuses on existential subject matter, yeah, he didn't like the film).

2) "This is pretentious drivel...." (etc. etc. etc. there's usually far more to this title but we all know it devolves to that)

Now, I usually find the above response to a film an abhorrent one, because nine times out of ten the matter is as simple as the poster not having connected with a movie's style or theme, getting angry about it and deciding that, because it wasn't up their alley, it must be "pretentious". But in this case it's doubly interesting - this film takes what is, in fact, a *very* pretentious subject and pokes fun at it - the concept of self-questioning, of seeking the meaning behind seemingly random occurences - it casts the very idea of "questing for a philosophy on life" in a bumbling, comic light.

So "It was pretentious!", normally an overly-simple response to a viewer not connecting with material, becomes funny on another level - they overlook that one of the major themes skewered by this film was our own self-involvement in seeking a meaning behind the slightest mishaps.

Anyway, as a qualifier: this post has nothing to do with "not getting it" - it has everything to do with "not connecting with it" - the elements and themes are there, either one connects with them and appreciates (or loathes) the style in which they were presented or fails to connect at all.

There's nothing wrong with failing to connect with a film - not all films are for everyone (Woody Allen is certainly a great example of that) and that is doubly the case with a quirky film such as this one... it's when those who don't connect with such a film make the mistake of taking it to the level of "Therefore there was nothing to connect with...." that it becomes a sort of humrous form of solipsism.