Sarah Silverman the comedian is always, as are most of today's performers, using comedy as a drug, a treatment for existential dread. "If I can make them laugh, I'm alive, I'm part of something that's vibrant, no matter how I may feel deep inside."
This is why we are transfixed by comedy, which is why "I Smile Back" was absolutely entrancing for me. Her character, Laney, was treading water, dealing with her desires, fears, disappointments in a way that, if played for the release of laughter, could have been very close to the Sarah persona.
In this film we saw Sara's nude body, but no more so than we see her uncovered in her comedy persona. This short film, an hour and a half, is built on this person we know, had there been a slight variation, such as abandonment by her father when she was nine years old.
Laney, never had a father, or the sense of unconditional love that would allow her to be with a crowd of friends sharing the contradictions of existence, and turning the moment, by wit and wisdom, into loving laughter.
Laney, could never get over her hurt by the Dad she had loved, and then he was gone, never to contact her again. She sought the love in raw unfeeling sex, reproducing the rejection and loss of her father, with the men who had just given her sexual pleasure.
Sorry for the dissection of this film, one that went beyond entertainment, to the sense of sharing a life, that tragic as it was, was how things are for more people than we can imagine.
This is why we are transfixed by comedy, which is why "I Smile Back" was absolutely entrancing for me. Her character, Laney, was treading water, dealing with her desires, fears, disappointments in a way that, if played for the release of laughter, could have been very close to the Sarah persona.
In this film we saw Sara's nude body, but no more so than we see her uncovered in her comedy persona. This short film, an hour and a half, is built on this person we know, had there been a slight variation, such as abandonment by her father when she was nine years old.
Laney, never had a father, or the sense of unconditional love that would allow her to be with a crowd of friends sharing the contradictions of existence, and turning the moment, by wit and wisdom, into loving laughter.
Laney, could never get over her hurt by the Dad she had loved, and then he was gone, never to contact her again. She sought the love in raw unfeeling sex, reproducing the rejection and loss of her father, with the men who had just given her sexual pleasure.
Sorry for the dissection of this film, one that went beyond entertainment, to the sense of sharing a life, that tragic as it was, was how things are for more people than we can imagine.