Don't Think Twice

2016’s “Don’t Think Twice”, written and directed by Mike Birbiglia.

Starring Keegan-Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs, Mike Birbiglia, Kate Micucci, Tami Sagher, and Chris Gethard.

Making it in the world of improvisational sketch comedy is akin to playing a major role on a championship winning sports team. Only a few basis points of a percentage will ever truly make it. For every Monty Python, Saturday Night Live, SCTV, Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show with Bob and David, and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! you have the multitudes of performers who never made it, banished to the unknown world of the non-entertainment of others. “DTT” is about both of those groups.

We meet a improvisational troupe, comprised of various personalities. Some are very outgoing and smooth, while others are more introverted and genuine, but they all share a love for the stage and making others laugh. For all intensive purposes, they are a family, with some of them dating each other. Their theatre where they perform their improv is a type of farm team, referred to here as “a breeding ground” for the show, Weekend Live (the show’s thin reference to “Saturday Night Live”). Indeed, the show’s characters speak in reverent tones about previous cast members and other entourage who have been lucky enough to land jobs at Weekend. When the movie starts, everything with the group is relatively fine, with some of them needing to work at second jobs to actually support themselves and their modest lifestyles, while they work towards their dreams of being promoted to the big show. Eventually, Keegan-Michael Key’s character is able to audition and be successful at getting a job at Weekend. His partner, Gillian Jacobs, shrinks from the moment, and has to deal with changed expectations as a result. The change in the group’s dynamic is the focus for the rest of the movie.

First time director Birbiglia does well in presenting the world of improv comedy, and more so with the group’s dynamics once certain people start becoming more successful than others. As they say, you want your friends to be successful- but not too successful. The group clearly cares for each other, but the real world implications of cast members leaving for more famous pastures in entertainment land strains on them. Audiences, initially a part of the show, become barriers to actually performing when all they want is the former cast member who is now (more) famous. Entitlement, jealousy, guilt, fear, all start to intrude on the other feelings of happiness and collaboration in the group. While Key does his best to stay professionally helpful and personally connected to the group, he feels the strains of both his detached and vague boss (an even more thinly veiled reference to corporate weirdo Lorne Michaels), and being unable to operate in the same world that he used to. Jacobs exemplifies this disconnect even better, as she processes the effects of not having the ambition to want to leave the “entry level” world that she has spent so long trying to get out of. While the ending is a tad too neat, Birbiglia juggles the group’s dynamics well, never reinventing the wheel, while never making us doubt the reasons the group performs- they love the spotlight, and often gladly do it for “exposure”.

3.5/5

Trailer: Click Here.