At first glance, Owen Kline’s feature directorial debut, Funny Pages, may seem like yet another unnecessary entry in a very long line of coming-of-age films centered around a teenage male outcast. Seventeen-year-old Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) has grown tired of his humdrum suburban life in Princeton, New Jersey, comforted only by his equally awkward best friend, Miles (Miles Emanuel). As Robert nears the end of high school, he’s also become more disconnected from his well-meaning but tightly wound and all-too-traditional parents (Maria Dizzia and Josh Pais), who expect him to go to college and get a respectable job.
These dynamics certainly feel familiar, but as Kline goes on to explore the offbeat milieu inhabited by Robert, an aspiring artist obsessed with dirty underground comics, Funny Pages introduces us to a steady parade of weirdos, eccentrics, and slimeballs who are as frighteningly authentic as they are hysterically outlandish. One can feel influence of Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World, Joel Potrykus, and the Safdie brothers, who produced Funny Pages, coursing through the veins of Kline’s film. But Kline consistently displays a warped, sharp-edged sense of humor that’s all his own, and his ragtag crew of misfit characters are every bit as meticulously detailed and carefully shaded as any of Robert’s twisted animated creations.
After the sudden death of his beloved art teacher (Stephen Adly Guirgis), the only adult who fully supported and encouraged his dreams, Robert moves into a basement apartment in Trenton that appears more suitable for a Saw sequel than human habitation. From the murky aquarium that may or may not have any fish still living in it to the absurdly hot temperature that the basement is kept at, this new abode is a comical hellscape that the fiercely determined Robert instantly sees as his first step toward personal and artistic independence. That Miles is just as over the moon as Robert about this sweatbox—whose stench of body odor, dank air, and fetid water practically wafts off the screen—speaks precisely to the fact that young people will often endure less than ideal living conditions if it means preserving their sense of freedom.
From Robert’s new home to the local comic shop to the shabby courthouse where he works to pay rent, the film paints a vivid picture of New Jersey’s seedier side. But it’s when Robert enters the orbit of the irascible Wallace (Matthew Maher), a former color separatist at a comics company that the young boy loves, that the film’s unflinching yet loving portrait of the ramshackle lives of creative crackpots evolves into a more meaningful exploration of the psychological toll the artistic life can take on those unwilling to compromise their vision.
Like Robert, Wallace is an outcast, but he’s also deeply unhinged, holding grudges against his former employer, Image Comics, while also fighting charges of assault on a Rite Aid pharmacist whom he claims is wildly aggressive. The odd-couple antics that typify Robert and Wallace’s relationship make for some of the film’s most caustically humorous stretches, including a visit to the aforementioned Rite Aid and a Christmas breakfast at Robert’s parents’ house. But where Robert sees Wallace as a mentor simply because he worked in the comics industry, Funny Pages goes on to slyly reveal that while jealousy and insecurity can fuel creativity at times, as it does with Robert and Miles, those emotions can also morph into self-destructive impulses that can turn one into a bitter shell of their former self.
In capturing Robert as he confronts certain truths of his heroes and the noble profession that he’s set out to conquer, Funny Pages eschews the platitudes and carefully scripted character arcs that often cause coming-of-age tales to feel not only predictable but coated in a sheen of nostalgia. Robert isn’t on the cusp of some great revelation or self-discovery. Rather, he remains out of step with his times and torn between being loyal, or even particularly nice or encouraging, to Miles and trying to expand his horizons (and connections) to forge a career that, particularly given his vulgar influences, will never be particularly lucrative.
Arguing with Wallace, in support of one of Robert’s drawings, Miles sardonically asks, “Form is more important than soul?” By the end of the film, Robert is still unsure of the answer, and Kline wisely leaves him in a state of stasis and uncertainty that feels genuine, especially given the period of life that the character is in. Funny Pages, on the other hand, resoundingly commits to soulfulness. It’s in the raw sense of urgency conjured by Sean Price Williams’s evocative cinematography; the wonderfully unusual, unpolished faces that it brings to the screen; and the comic foibles of a young man trying to break through as an artist in an increasingly arcane landscape of comics. Form is a critical part of art, yes, but it’s soul that so often gives it, and life, that ineffable quality that makes it unique and worth the struggle.
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