• Starring: Emma Roberts, Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis
  • Summary: It’s @5:00 A.M. on a Sunday in Brooklyn. Craig Gilner is bicycling up to the entrance of a mental health clinic; this bright 16-year-old is stressed out from the demands of being a teenager. Before his parents and younger sister are even awake, Craig checks himself into Argenon Hospital and is admitted by a psychiatrist. But the youth ward is temporarily closed – so he finds himself stuck in the adult ward. One of the patients, Bobby, soon becomes both Craig’s mentor and protégé. Craig is also quickly drawn to another 16-year-old displaced to the adult ward, the sensitive Noelle, who just might make him forget his longtime unrequited crush Nia. With a minimum five days’ stay imposed on him by the adult ward’s staff psychiatrist Dr. Eden Minerva, Craig is sustained by friendships on both the inside and the outside as he learns more about life, love, and the pressures of growing up. (Focus Features) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 33
  2. Negative: 1 out of 33
  1. Gilchrist ("United States of Tara") is immensely appealing as a kid who's just a bit too wrapped up in himself to grasp that perhaps his problems aren't insurmountable.
  2. Melancholy 16-year-olds are the ideal audience for It's Kind of a Funny Story, which actually feels as though it were made by an especially precocious adolescent.
  3. 38
    There's very little that's even kind of funny in It's Kind of a Funny Story, which can't accurately be described as a comedy but isn't a true drama, either.

See all 33 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 22 out of 26
  2. Negative: 1 out of 26
  1. 10
    A wonderfully made movie that is more of a drama than a comedy. It was very enjoyable to watch and I would recommend going to see it. It's Kind of a Funny Story is a wonderful coming-of-age tale. Expand
    • 4 of 4 users said yes
  2. Can be best summed up by a reviewer who said - "I used to think art was just bourgeois decadence," a wiser Craig says in the end, which is funny, because that's kind of what this film is. " - Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. If I needed an encyclopedia on every romanic comedy cliche ever conceived, It's Kind of a Funny Story would be my perfect guide. I think it all went downhill when the main character, unsure of how to grab the attention of a girl he likes, receives the most "important" piece of advice in the whole film: drop the L word. The L word of course being Love, not Lesbians as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World put it for us earlier this year; a film by the way that actually broke some ground in the romcom genre. Of course, the main character being the dweeby idiot that most love story protagonists are these days, drops the L word at complete wrong moment... Top it off it with lover boy figuring out to win her back in the matter of 20 minutes and then a romantic makeout session on a scenic rooftop with the view of the sunset. Seriously? Despite the cliches this movie is riddled with cheesy performances and flat jokes. Zack Galifianakis is of course the films only redeeming quality; seeing him pull off a serious role so effectively is will give you chills... but everything else drags it down. Expand
    • 1 of 6 users said yes

See all 26 User Reviews