Funny, Unlimited Jokes That Will Make You Hate Your New Neighbor

Written by Robert Scucci | Published 32 seconds ago

If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class, you know how difficult it is to use simple language to get your point across. Written, published words last forever, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of overcomplicating things. Mark Twain said, “Don’t use a five dollar word when a fifty word will do.” As I wanted to enjoy 2020 Mimicwritten and directed by Thomas F. Mazziotti, I felt very much like I was back in college narrating an overzealous undergrad short story that was clearly written with the help of a well-dressed thesaurus.

It’s not that the movie isn’t funny at times, or that the characters aren’t great. It is, and they are. The problem is that no one talks like this, and the dialogue that’s meant to sound clever often makes the whole thing sound like one long episode. Gilmore Girls. Mimic it’s definitely trying to be a smart and clever comedy, but I’d enjoy it a lot more if it didn’t sound like it was constantly reminding me how smart and funny it was.

The Sociopath Child

The layout of Mimic would make a great sketch or sitcom episode, but its 81-minute running time is tiresome once you get to know the main characters. Our protagonist, who is billed as the Narrator (Thomas Sadoski), is a widower and a writer (it all starts to make sense now). When The Kid (Jake Robinson) comes into her life, the Narrator quickly suspects that he may be a sociopath. His reasoning is simple: The child copies everything he does and seems to have no personality. The child never makes eye contact while talking, which suggests that he is always measuring whoever he is interacting with.

The Kid also has a number of odd hobbies, including ducks (generally), wild mushrooms, and talking about a wife who has never been seen on screen. Intrigued by The Kid, and eager to prove his theory, the Narrator contacts a woman known only as The Librarian (Jessica Keenan Wynn) to learn more about sociopathy. His main goal is to write a story about The Kid and impress the women who work at the local paper, who are always “arguing about semicolons.” As the two men get to know each other better, it gradually dawns on the Narrator that he and The Kid are not so different, suggesting the possibility that the Narrator himself may be a sociopath.

All of the above situations make for solid comedy when done well, but the standout moments that really made me cringe, like The Kid’s weird, no-nonsense bathroom escape from Gina Gershon’s “Woman at the Bar” character, are few and far between.

That’s all. That’s All

Marrying a young woman there Gilmore Girls it was the talk of the town, the only thought I had while watching Mimic that the Narrator and The Kid are basically male versions of Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. Each conversation becomes a rapid flood of pop culture references, brainstorming, and gotcha-style exchanges that force the viewer to go along with it, despite the fact that most of these exchanges don’t move the story at all.

Sadly, there are some great zingers here, but you’ll probably miss them while trying to decipher every single line of dialogue in real time.

Circling back to the Creative Writing 101 vibe, Mimic you fall into all the usual traps. Mazziotti is very precious about his humor and doesn’t always know when to tone things down. Given the film’s 81-minute running time, it often felt like there wasn’t enough story to stretch the premise into a feature-length film. It makes you wonder how much better this would have worked if everything had been cut down to a sharp 20 or 30 minutes.

Things get even worse when the perspective reverses and we learn that two characters known as The Director (M. Emmet Walsh) and The Writer (Doug Plaut) are writing the script for Mimicarguing about motivation and how much of each character’s history should be revealed to the audience. It all smells like a junior high school notebook. The kind of smell you get when that PB&J they packed last week and forgot to break the Ziploc bag and it’s leaking all over the first draft before peer review.

MimicAs a concept, there are many promises. As a feature-length film, though, it ends up feeling like all flash and no smash. I don’t mind spending a lot of time with these characters because they’re really fun and conflicted, but I wish we could have a more polished, cohesive version of what Mazziotti was trying to achieve.

As of this writing, Mimic is streaming for free on Tubi.