The Comedy

A guy in Williamsburg ignores the notion of inheriting his fathers estate while he plays games with his friends.

Contents

• Plot
• Reception
• References

The Comedy is a 2012 drama film directed and co-written by Rick Alverson, and starring Tim Heidecker. Supporting actors include Eric Wareheim (Tim and Eric), James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), and Gregg Turkington (better known as Neil Hamburger). The film was premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and screened within such festivals as Maryland Film Festival 2012. The film was distributed by Tribeca Film and was slated for theatrical release on November 9, 2012 and nationwide On Demand starting October 24, 2012.

Despite the title and use of comedians as actors, Sundance festival chief programmer Trevor Groth says that the film is not a comedy, but instead "a provocation, a critique of a culture based at its core around irony and sarcasm and about ultimately how hollow that is."

The first ten minutes of the film was purposely leaked onto various torrent websites with an anti-piracy statement at the end of the video. The resulting publicity made the actual film the most pirated independent film of the year.

Indifferent even to the prospects of inheriting his father’s estate, Swanson has been insulated his whole life by the bubble of privilege. He and his hipster friends live in a tepid social paradise, a.k.a. Williamsburg, where their good fortune breeds indifference and recreational cruelty. They pacify their discontent with games of mock sincerity and irreverence, as though humor itself were dying and had nothing left to do but turn on itself. Testing limits to break through their numbness, they act out like spoiled children – with ironic beards and beer bellies.