Funny Bunny
Directed by Alison Bagnall
Starring Kentucker Audley, Joslyn Jensen, Olly Alexander, Anna Margaret Hollyman and Josephine Decker
Gene spends his days canvassing about childhood obesity. One day he canvasses Titty, an emotionally-arrested 19-year-old who has successfully sued his own father to win back a large inheritance and gotten himself disowned in the process. Gene discovers that Titty has an ongoing online relationship with the beautiful but reclusive Ginger, who is an animal activist. Gene convinces Titty to make a pilgrimage to meet Ginger where the two men form a close bond despite both of them being drawn to the enigmatic Ginger, who is in need of rescue.
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Reviews
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★★★½ review by Rakestraw on Letterboxd
The occupying quirk found in Alison Bagnall’s Funny Bunny is easily recognizable on the surface as more of the same. At first glance, Bagnall’s feature has the familiar appearance of all the other indie comedies strewn about the distribution landscape over the past several years except that Bagnall’s implementation emerges as a more thoughtful interpretation.
Instead of piling eccentricities upon eccentricities for the sake of eccentricity, Funny Bunny situates its character’s quirkiness as a defense mechanism, concealing the melancholy and loneliness harbored deep inside the film’s characters. A deferment strategy deflecting recognition away from their emotional states unto their carefully-curated outward personas, projecting unusual behaviors as focal points to avoid the potential of addressing past traumas and present pains.
Funny Bunny’s characters are a trifecta of sadness and loneliness. The throughline being Gene, played by Kentucker Audley, a childhood obesity activist canvassing the neighborhood door-to-door to drum up support and educate the community. Audley portrays Gene as a meek, anxiety-ridden man desperately trying his best to do good, which can be construed as clingy and oblivious at times. His performance feels like a natural extension of his role in Dustin Guy Defa’s Bad Fever.
Olly Alexander as Titty, a love-deprived trust funder with a propensity for owl impersonations, and Joslyn Jensen as Ginger, an eco-activist with a webcam site dealing in bunny cuddles and conversation, round-out the despondent triad. All three converge in a plotline of undirected tangents that may or may not prove to be insightful as to the existential status of all three. One thing is for certain, though, all three are in need of love and affection. More specifically, and simplistically, they all seem to be on a quest for nothing more than a hug, a simple heartfelt embrace providing comfort and understanding.
Unbeknownst to them, cinematographer Ashley Connor has been gently embracing all three from the start with her graceful hand-held lensing, genteel observations of the spaces between them while caressing the characters with the tenderness and compassion all three have been searching for well before our introductions.
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★★★★★ review by J.P. Vitale on Letterboxd
This is so much more my jam than "Everest" lol.
This comedy hails from acclaimed director Alison Bagnall and stars Kentucker Audley (the www.nobudge.com founder whose birth name is Andrew Nenninger) and Olly Alexander (Bagnall's "Dish and the Spoon" star who also is in a band you probably have at least heard of).
Audley plays an unhappy anti-obesity crusader who inadvertently strikes up a friendship with a rich, Pee-Wee Herman-Esque man-child played by the youthful looking Alexander and soon Audley tries to get Alexander to conquer his fears by wooing a quite possibly psychotic Animal Rights Activist with intimacy issues they meet online named Ginger.
I love comedies about damaged, broken human beings with real fears and problems. This film is hilarious as well as being quirkily heartfelt.
This was right up my proverbial alley.
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★★★½ review by Fabio on Letterboxd
A tale of lost souls, awkwardly funny and weirdly good.
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