For many viewers, the scenes hardest to take in viral streaming cringefest “Baby Reindeer” weren’t the ones of overt stalking or abuse, but those depicting the DOA stand-up comedy of Richard Gadd’s alter ego — moments whose flop-sweating public failure seemed to stretch into tortuous infinity. Canadian feature “ I Used to Be Funny ” likewise hinges on a paralyzing intersection between stand-up, anxiety and depression. Mercifully, however, here it’s not the protagonist’s stage act that is the cause of massive self-doubt.
Instead, it’s a host of external problems that conspire to make her incapable of performing ...
as well as eating, sleeping and leaving her apartment. Ally Pankiw ’s big-screen debut recalls such prior indie features as “The Big Sick,” “Sleepwalk With Me” and “Obvious Child” in successfully using a comedy milieu to place a leavening frame around some very serious issues. In this case, an aspiring comedian played by Rachel Sennott of “Shiva Baby” and “Bodies Bodies Bodies” takes a mental-health plunge in the wake of multiple traumatizing events.
Not all are even her own experiences, and some we don’t suss out until late in the director’s trickily structured screenplay. That convoluted storytelling tack at times threatens to muffle “Funny’s” potent narrative agenda. Yet in the end, this ambitious, imperfect drama does pull off a complex thematic mix, encompassing issues from grief to sexual assault, with a gener.
