She's Funny That Way

Wilson is repetitive and tiresome, Poots grossly inadequate, Hahn again underused, the dialogues flat and the punch-lines absent.

One of the breeziest romps of the year, She's Funny That Way marks the big-screen directorial comeback of the Hollywood historian-critic Peter Bogdanovich. Blending his own comic sensibilities with a touch of Ernst Lubitsch, the old-school maestro whose final completed film Cluny Brown (1946) provides the inspiration for a running gag involving squirrels and nuts, this is Bogdanovich's valentine to the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s and '40s.

As Bogdanovich takes us for a carousel trip after 13 years, it is heartening to lay back and let the frothy amusing chaos entertain you.

The situations thereof are whacky enough but the humor is a little too obvious and mitigating. There's no originality in the screenplay either. Clichés abound while cloaked rambunctiousness can only keep you tickled for a brief while.

This film is not your typical romcom and that sets it apart. Watch it to see a contemporary screwball comedy from a master of many.

Peter Bogdanovich's romantic situational comedy is a blend of the conversational sparkle mastered by Woody Allen, the texture of Wes Anderson's quirky characterization and a throwback to the Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s. She's Funny That Way is similar to Bogdanovich's earlier works, like Noises Off and Paper Moon, in its theatricality.