For those keeping score at home, it was easy to argue that A24 owned the 2022 calendar year. Along with the ongoing success of future Oscar winner Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), they had partnered with Ti West for a fun, sleazy horror throwback along with the late summer zeitgeist-skewering Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). Following a post-pandemic period that found them struggling to balance box office and acclaim, they were finally achieving the magic many independent studios envied. They were making original stories into bigtime hits.
Serving as a b-side to the aforementioned titles was Funny Pages (2022): the directorial debut of the unlikeliest actor. While many had spent the years since lobbing praise onto his The Squid and the Whale (2005) co-star Jessie Eisenberg, Owen Kline took a humbler route. With dreams of being a comic book artist, anyone could be forgiven for wondering why his resume seemed a little light. Even so, his curiosity to make something autobiographical eventually persuaded him to take the risk and make a film that, as he’d put it, owed more to cantankerous and raw dramas like Frownland (2007). He wasn’t going to make something that felt dishonest or compromised. That may be why it took what felt like a lifetime to get from page to screen.
The story begins when Kline was a teenager. Whereas most actors would build on the success of an Oscar-nominated film, he was insistent that he would become an artist. The stories that interested him most were from underground creators like Daniel Clowes and Robert Crumb, who not only were distinctive in style, but also emphasized stories catering to intimate specificity. As the years went on, he became compelled to try and write a story about similar experiences to his own, notably around the state of New Jersey, where he recalls flipping through back issues and finding many beloved comic book artists hanging around.
His biggest conflict came in the ability to centralize the story into something engaging to viewers. Kline recalls creating hundreds of drafts over a period extending beyond a decade. With every major edit, he would store the previous drafts in their own unique Tupperware containers. Given the niche focus, he struggled to find anyone willing to help finance his small film, of which he made no qualms about it having limited appeal despite demanding it have a respectable production budget.
Key among his influences was the cinema of Josh and Benny Safdie along with their co-writer Ronald Bronstein. Kline recalls seeing Bronstein’s Frownland and becoming inspired to tell a raw film with a sketchy protagonist. Despite being disinterested in the mumblecore movement said film was associated with, he found The Safdies to be interesting in how they pioneered their style, believing that they took everyday life and found ways to make something kinetic and frantic. He wanted to be part of it and, thanks to a good working relationship, he would get his chance starting with an acting appearance in their short film John’s Gone.
The Safdies were key in shaping the film’s larger focus. Upon sharing it, they gave Kline notes on how to make the protagonist more recognizable. Having struggled for years to gain financing, this move saved the project from being completely ditched, as Kline was losing faith in it ever going anywhere. Thanks to The Safdies, along with Bronstein, he shaped a comedy that felt true to his intention. He even landed the trio in rare producer credits.
By comparison to the lengthy script-writing period, Funny Pages was shot effortlessly throughout New Jersey. The story of a college dropout trying to make it on his own while surrounded by eccentric screw-ups, including former Image Comics cartoonists, was true enough to life, even if Kline differed from his on-screen counterpart Daniel Zohlgardi in many respects, notably that he had no prior interest in underground comics nor did he know how to draw left-handed. This resulted in Kline using himself as a hand model in close-up scenes in which he drew the many comics, including the salacious opening with a Tijuana Bible full of erotic images.
Despite being shot in 2017, the post-production period would prove taxing. Because he was still working, Kline often edited in his free time on his personal equipment. He stated that a lot of the story revealed itself in this process and helped turn an original shooting draft of over 120 pages into a brisk comedy under 90 minutes. In total, it would take roughly four years to achieve a satisfactory version. If there was an issue, however, it was that the pandemic in 2020 caused more setbacks for its release.
For a story so small and intimate, Funny Pages would have a substantial rollout. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival as part of its Director’s Fortnight series. The success led to a three-minute standing ovation and set Kline up for a potential surprise hit for A24. The film would be theatrically released that August. While it wouldn’t receive nearly as much attention as the studio’s other big players, it was finding a valuable audience from critics praising its originality and heartfelt yet acidic vision of its world. It would go on to receive nominations from groups like the Gotham Awards, the National Board of Review, and the Independent Spirit Film Awards.
The pedigree could explain why it resonated with movie fans. According to critics aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, the film earned a substantial 82% approval rating. Leading the buzz was Jordan Hoffman of The A.V. Club, who noted, “Funny Pages understands that being truly committed to comics, the lowest form in all the arts (except for performance poetry, of course), is an express ticket to a life of social misery and alienation.” Matt Conway of Battle Royale with Cheese shared in the sentiment when suggesting, “Kline and his creative company cultivate a compelling and refreshingly amoral odyssey of a self-assured teenager coming face-to-face with the uncompromising world around him.” The few who disagreed included Hector A. Gonzalez of Loud and Clear Reviews, who criticized, “The grittiness of Sean Price Williams’ cinematography and atmosphere carries Owen Kline’s Funny Pages, but the rest falters – a coming-of-age feature lacking focus, coherence, and laughter.” Overall, it can be argued that the film did what the best of A24 films do and really locked in with their demographic.
Even if Kline has yet to announce a follow-up, his career since 2022 has featured a significant boost. Along with appearing in an additional A24 movie, A Different Man (2024), he recently made a more prominent cameo in the Seth Rogen-produced series The Studio. It’s unclear where his career will take him next, though he’s been skeptical about making another film given his exhaustive path to make the type of art that spoke to him.
Even if Funny Pages can’t be considered top-shelf A24, it did enough right to prove the studio’s formula for finding unique voices and allowing them to make passion projects. Unlike most films covered in this column, it seems doubtful that Kline would’ve done this without The Safdies hooking him up with financing and one of the most coveted distributors of the modern age. It was an odd little film that may exist too much in the shadow of its producers’ more successful works, but it proved the power of a well-crafted narrative. The same could be said for their next film, which found a returning director for the second time in one year with a spiritual sequel that pushed boundaries and cemented its star into a horror icon.
Coming Up Next: Pearl (2022)
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