My Thoughts on "It's Kind of a Funny Story"

Some movies are horrible, some are forgettable, others are average and the rest are good; "It's Kind of a Funny Story" ranks a little above average in this scale. I found this movie to be quite entertaining and it deals with themes of high importance, although these might not have been dealt with as seriously as they required to.

On the plus side, not only it is one of the few movies I see that deal with mental disorders and (at least tries) to create awareness of topics with such a big impact on all humans, moreover, the jokes it made highly appeal to me. The last item in favour of this film is that it was easy to watch, entertaining, something surprising considering the themes treated and its length, a little above most movies.

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" has some major drawbacks too, particularly with the tone it uses, for works of art that touch themes as important as mental health and disorders it is crucial to express things with a serious tone and knowing this is a sensitive topic. This movie dances on the grave of this rule. Don't get me wrong, I believe every topic can be dealt with in a funny way, but the humour used here just doesn't work taking into account the seriousness of the ilnesses portayed. Another thing this film does terribly wrong is the act of creating awareness of these disorders, this is done by making the characters aware too, but never does this happen. Another issue is the inaccurate portrayal of different disorders, this shouldn't be as big of a trouble but it is so annoying that throughout the entire film you are reminded that you are in a mental institution using the method of "hey, you are in a place filled with fucked up people, have these fucked up moments".

As a whole, the movie is not that great, but at least it is memorable and has some funny scenes here and there, albeit I would not recommend it if you are looking for something earth-shaking.