Movie Review: “Brigsby Bear” Is the Strangest and Most Lovable Comedy of the Year

The hardest films to review are the ones you love.

Articulating adoration is nearly impossible. That’s why we have emojis and italics. Because some movies are good. But then some other movies are good. And, of course, some movies are 😂.

If we could all clearly convey our most impassioned feelings about art, we wouldn’t need to storm McDonald’s and demand sachets of Szechuan sauce to prove our devotion, as certain ‘Rick and Morty intellectuals’ inexplicably did. We called them “bad fans”, and not unfairly, though there’s something we share with those ding-dongs, rightly or wrongly: The feeling that the things we love make us who we are.

Loving ‘things’ helps us find our private community of people who 'get it'. Sure, fanaticism can turn toxic. However, at its best, fandom leads to friendship. It’s as primal and platonic as that.

Brigsby Bear, directed by Dave McCary and co-written by Kevin Costello and star Kyle Mooney, arrives in time to save the idea of the ‘fan’ from toxicity.

It’s an empathetic and moving comedy about James Pope, a 25-year-old who emerges from a life of total isolation and struggles to adapt to the real world. (If you really don’t want the premise—established in the opening minutes—ruined for you, skip the rest of my review. Just know I’m giving this thing five stars, so promise me you’ll go see it, okay?)

Kidnapped as a baby, James was held captive and raised by oddballs Ted (Mark Hamill) and April (Jane Adams) in an underground bunker. Rescued as an adult, police return him to his real mum and dad (Matt Walsh, Michaela Watkins). The only totem from his previous life: Tapes and tapes of a TV show called Brigsby Bear, which no one else has heard of. The show was made by Ted, as a form of home-schooling, and it features a giant talking bear who attempts to save the planet through maths equations. Unfortunately, thanks to the police raid, the show ends on a cliffhanger.

When his sister Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins) and her friend Spencer (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) agree to help James shoot a finale for Brigsby Bear, his bubble of loneliness is pierced. They even start catching up on old eps. Mooney’s gentle, echolalic performance (like Dougie Jones from Twin Peaks) reminds us what a gift it is to find someone who shares our frames of reference, and our specific pop-cultural language. When characters start quoting Brigsby back to him, Mooney’s hesitant, open-mouth smile widens to a beam. For those who live on the fringes, the shorthand of 'things' is their only tether to everyone else.

Mooney trained his awkward pause on Saturday Night Live and weaponises it here. And yet his character is not a joke, and Brigsby Bear is not a cringe-comedy. From the top down, the film is sweetly underplayed, despite the nature of the set-up and the absurdity of James’ Brigsby-inspired outsider art. Walsh and Watkins are heartbreaking; Kate Lyn Sheil, as an unwitting star in the Brigsby TV show, is humane; and Greg Kinnear, as a detective with untapped acting potential, is dignified and good-natured.

The picture is funny and sad and warm and involving. McCary, like Michel Gondry before him, brings the late ‘80s DIY aesthetic to life but doesn’t drown his performers in cutesy flourishes; nor are any of his characters defined by singular quirks. Dave Wingo’s plaintive, harp-plucking score takes things seriously, not solemnly.

As much as Brigsby Bear is a tender defence of fandom as a unifying agent, and a tribute to the joy of making something with your friends, it's also an affecting depiction of trauma. James learns you're not what you love; rather, you're everything that’s happened to you, good and bad. Brigsby Bear happened to me, deeply, and I love it. No, wait, I love it. No, wait, I 😂.

5/5

In cinemas October 26 with advanced screenings from October 20. Rated M for sex scenes and drug use.