Funny Pages

In this honest, uncomfortable reimagining of young adulthood, director Kilne embraces the hilarious and the grotesque: the world of acne, sweaty hair, weird sexual practices, and talking with your mouth full. Underpinned by the familiar directionless fumbling that commonly marks coming-of-age stories, Funny Pages does not promise resolution in the way many others do. Instead, we watch as the main character, eighteen-year-old comic enthusiast Robert, grapples with his desire to follow his artistic vocation, his dreary, humbling job at the district attorney’s office, and the uninspiring realities of everyday adult life.

Embracing the common corners of comic book culture – the traditional outsider, loner characters, basement living, long hair and outdated specs – Funny Pages plunges face-first into dark, sardonic, I’m-going-to-hell-for-laughing-at-that humour with reckless abandon. Honest, offensive, and hilarious, this film is a human dissection on film, driving straight to the guts of what it is to be eighteen and exist on the cusp of childhood and adulthood.

Anna Taylor