Crying with Laughter

One of the great things about being a film critic/journalist/reviewer (delete as applicable) is that you can see a huge variety of films from foreign arthouse movies to recent blockbusters and everything in between. Sometimes you know almost nothing about a film until you put the disc in your DVD/Blu-ray player and press play and this was the case with Crying with Laughter as it is a DTV film and the only quotes were from Scottish newspapers. The synopsis also left a great deal unexplained and completely open so it was a case of going in with no preconceptions or expectations whatsoever.

The film begins with a stand-up comedian, Joey Frisk, practising his material on the beach in Edinburgh, making notes of the things that he comes out with that he thinks will succeed when he gets on stage. It then cuts to Joey, battered and bruised and with a significant limp walking onto stage, taking the microphone and beginning to regale the audience with the bizarre events of the past week. In a series of flashbacks that constantly return to his 'act', we see exactly what he is talking about and the events that made his weight so memorable.

Joey is a fairly complicated guy as he is not on great speaking terms with his ex-wife and sees his daughter infrequently because his job means he keeps unsocial hours, drinks and (much to his manager's annoyance) has a cocaine habit which means that he doesn't have a great deal of disposable income and can barely pay his rent. One day whilst relaxing and enjoying a swim at a health club, a man swims up and sits next to him before introducing himself as Frank, saying they went to school together and seems to know enough about Joey and his brief stay at school to convince the comedian that the guy is real, albeit a bit strange and intense.

Using that encounter as material for his next gig, Joey also picks on a Goth in the audience who turns out to be Frank's girlfriend. Joey is the kind of guy who can talk himself out of just about any situation and placates Frank and Colette by getting the drinks in and ensuring that no harm was done. Back at his apartment, Joey is enjoying a visit from his daughter and ex-wife when his landlord shows up and is far from complimentary, demanding rent from Joey which he reluctantly takes from the top drawer of his bedside cabinet, doing something I won't mention here to the notes before handing them over.

As a man who is now more angry than funny, Joey notices his landlord is in the audience at his next gig and begins shouting, swearing and generally being unpleasant before his landlord shouts out that he has a couple of days to take his belongings and get out of the flat. This only spurs Joey on it he asks the audience for best ways to kill a landlord before getting well and truly drunk with Frank and heading out on the town whilst his new friend says he has had enough and wants to go home.


Sleeping in an armchair and still dressed as he was the night before, Joey is rudely awakened when the police smash his door down and arrest him for GBH because his landlord was found severely beaten and with head injuries at the club to which Joey was heading the night before. Compounding matters, the police say they have a witness who picks out Joey at a lineup where the participants (in a scene similar to that in The Usual Suspects) have to read out a certain line for the witness to pick the man who was there that evening.

This is only the beginning of Joey's troubles as Frank gradually becomes a bigger presence in his life and events take unexpected turn after unexpected turn that will take him back to his school days and force him to confront the memories of things that happened over two decades ago.

It was only after watching Crying with Laughter that I looked on the Internet for details on the principal crew and cast members and was amazed to find that this was a very low-budget film with a writer-director making his feature film debut and a cast that included many first time actors and even members of the crew. It looks and feels like a film that has much more accomplished actors put a great deal more experience and the direction, screenplay, costumes and SFX make-up are all extremely good, belying the budget and lack of experience behind the camera.


One of the keys to the film's success is the central casting of Stephen McCole as Joey as he has a terrific sense of timing in his delivery and is extremely believable as a stand-up comedian because he appears to have a natural sense of comic timing and reels off the lines with consummate ease. If you didn't know better, you would think that he had a background as a stand-up comedian but had never done it before although had done some improv for a couple of years prior to the film. His interplay with Malcolm Shields, who plays Frank, is superb and Shields is able to gradually change his demeanour and cadence so you're never quite sure whether he is genuinely dangerous or simply as an extremely dark sense of humour until about the end of the first act. Jo Hartley, who plays Joey's ex-wife, is clearly a great talent as her collaborations with Shane Meadows on Dead Man's Shoes and This Is England testify and she doesn't let herself down here with one bit.

Justin Molotnikov, whose previous work comprises TV shows and two short films has clearly learned a lot from his experience making things for the small screen as his writing is extremely impressive with a great narrative and well rounded characters. Molotnikov also impresses behind the camera with his direction as some of the shots are very well crafted and his sense of composition and mise en scène isn't the sort of thing you would expect from a man making his first feature film.

As I really wasn't expecting anything from this film and went into it with a completely open mind, I wasn't exactly surprised to find that it was a very well crafted thriller to keeps you involved from first minute to last but, looking at it in hindsight, it is remarkable what can be achieved with a committed crew and cast.


The Disc

Extra Features
This is a two disc set with a commentary on disc one with the bulk of the extra material on the second disc.

The commentary includes Justin Molotnikov, Malcolm Shields, Stephen McCole and producer Laura Keenan (who also plays Joey's manager, Dee). Considering the number of participants, this is a remarkably well delivered, informative and revealing listen although they occasionally veer off on a tangent to talk about something else. It is a jovial and informal affair but the information contained within the commentary track is quite interesting.

Making of (12:24) includes some behind the scenes footage and interviews with the likes of Laura Keenan, Justin Molotnikov and members of the crew as they go through the background to the film and the shooting process. It also covers the reasons why it was made and how Molotnikov secured funding before going on to how Stephen McCole prepared himself for being a stand-up comedian. This is well worth watching as a covers most bases without being the most comprehensive or in depth making of featurette I've ever seen. It is a bit of a shame that the whole thing is letterboxed and not anamorphic as the whole piece is in widescreen.

Becoming Joey Frisk Documentary (18:48) is, as the title suggests, a piece about Stephen McCole and how he made the three months chat transition from actor to stand-up with contributions from his tutor, Viv Gee who is a stand-up comedian and tutor to aspiring comedians. It is quite funny to see his early attempts at a stand-up routine in Gee's living room(?) when McCole has a great deal less facial hair and isn't the assured presence you see during the film but his material and delivery are very good. It finishes up with his first live gig which is surprisingly good as he interacts with the crowd very well and delivers his risqué material with aplomb.


The Inspiration Behind Crying with Laughter (26:44) is a discussion between Justin Molotnikov, Malcolm Shields and Stephen McCole, probably shot in Molotnikov's back garden, with Shields talking about his school days which were apparently very much like Molotnikov's but, as the content of the discussion is a major spoiler for the film, I won't divulge what they talk about. When Stephen McCole speaks, he goes through the process of how he gained the courage to do the stand-up routines and how he gradually changed from someone who didn't want to be responsible for the content as a comedy to someone who was writing the stand-up routines as it wouldn't have felt or sounded truthful otherwise. It is surprising just how candid Malcolm Shields is during the piece and it has remarkably good sound quality and is neatly directed.

Edinburgh Festival Launch Party Gig (4:53) is footage of 'Joey Frisk' doing a stand-up routine at the Edinburgh Festival for the official launch of Crank with Laughter. This shows he's come a long way from the early days performing in someone's living room and is now extremely confident on stage.

Comedy Sets (57:36) consists of six different sets from five different comedians as Joey Frisk appears twice. Perhaps the strangest name is Parrot but the standard is generally very good and they run for a healthy amount of time each with a combined running time of just under an hour. This isn't really essential viewing but will be ideal for those who like the lesser-known stand-up comedians. It is a little strange how they still have the tracker bar at the bottom but it is fairly rough material that hasn't been processed for inclusion in the feature film.

Deleted Scenes, of which there are nine in total including different comedy routines from the stand-up comedians, extended scenes and the original ending. Like the comedy sets, these have the tracker bar at the bottom but it isn't a distraction.

About Britfilms is just a screen with four paragraphs of text telling you about Britfilms and their involvement in making films with new filmmakers.

Weblink tells you how to open the disc and launch the website contained in the Weblinks folder.


The Picture
I've always been a bit wary about films shot entirely digitally as they can look superb, as in the case of David Fincher's Zodiac or they can look terrible with plenty of banding and poor detail in very bright or dark situations but this is thankfully very sharp with good colours and contrast and, if I didn't know otherwise, I would have assumed it was shot on 35mm film. Considering the film moves from the crowded and smoky interiors of comedy clubs to some quite expansive exterior scenes, the technology is clearly up to the job.

Justin Molotnikov seems to have a keen visual eye and, with his cinematographer Martin Radich, comes up with some very good shots and well filmed scenes which he explains in the commentary as it was shot in the Scottish winter when there wasn't very much sunlight and a couple of scenes had to be worked around about 15 minutes of sunlight!


The Sound
Considering this is a predominantly dialogue dominated film, the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround option seemed a little redundant but it is surprising how much the surrounds come into play so this just about has the edge over the DD 2.0 stereo track. Both are very clear and do an excellent job with the dialogue, whether it be shouted, softly spoken or as part of a stand-up routine.

There is a typically impressive score by Lorne Balfe who has an extremely impressive résumé when it comes to composing and being part of the sound/music department and has worked on some very big films including Inception, Iron Man and Frost/Nixon in recent years.

There are well written English and French subtitles.


Final Thoughts
Crying with Laughter is one of those films that comes from nowhere and takes you completely by surprise. When I'm asked to review a title with which I am completely unfamiliar, I like to keep myself in the dark and not read up about it a great deal so as not to go into the film with any prejudices. In the case of this film, there was almost no material that I could have read anyway so I watched it and found it to be a compelling piece of work with a really interesting structure based on flashback so you know from the outset that no matter how bad things become, you know that Joey Frisk will be alive at the end. All of the actors are very impressive and writer-director Justin Molotnikov shows that he is a promising talent who should be given many more opportunities to make feature films.

This very good film comes with an equally very good set with two discs containing nearly 2 hours of extra features (not including the commentary) which are worth going through after you have seen the film because they do contain spoilers. All in all, this is a very impressive package that anyone who likes thrillers and films that delve into the darker side of life and the human psyche would do well to add to their collection.