Don't Think Twice (2016)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

In 2016's mesmerizing Comedy-Drama 'Don't Think Twice', Writer-Director-Actor Mike Birbiglia asks us a very vital questions: Are Our Dreams Ready For Us? By ready I mean, are the dreamers going to accomplish their dreams or is just an imagination of their minds? For Birbiglia, its uncertain. And interestingly enough, Birbiglia has made a film that's nothing less a triumph in terms of storytelling.'Don't Think Twice' Synopsis: When a member of a popular New York City improv troupe gets a huge break, the rest of the group - all best friends - start to realize that not everyone is going to make it after all.'Don't Think Twice' is about dreams, dreamers & the part of destiny & luck doing its job. No one in this world is born without skill, courage or determination, and the characters here, an amusingly lovable improv troupe from NYC, are shown as dreamers with talent. But, as luck chooses its opportunists, only one of them, actually makes the cut. And its sad what happens here, but not all of it. Triumph in life is usually waived by the amount of money & fame you can make for yourself (not only in showbiz), but at times, when the dreams aren't materializing in reality, you look on the gift on looking at the gifts you have left: To Be You!Birbiglia is up for top-honors. 'Don't Think Twice' is a bitingly great film, whose nakedness on life & dreams, is of high-order. Birbiglia's Screenplay is super strong, while his Direction, is extremely arresting. The Cinematography & The Edit, merit a special mention.Performance-Wise: Birbiglia does well as an actor as well. Clearly, the man has excelled in all the roles he's put himself in! Keegan-Michael Key is nicely restrained. Gillian Jacobs is outstanding. She's at her best here! Kate Micucci, Tami Sagher and Chris Gethard, also deliver magnificently. Others lend excellent support.On the whole, 'Don't Think Twice' takes a piece out of you & stays in your mind long after it concludes. How many films do that? Don't Think, Just Watch It!

Did the people who scored this low even see the same movie I did? This is a fantastic, lovely, bittersweet, heartwarming and charming indie film about friendship, love, and improv. It's directed by Mike Bribiglia and produced by Ira Glass, with some fantastic talented actors in front of the camera. I highly recommend, if you're reading this, that you see it!

We meet an improv troupe called "The Commune." They are based in a small New York theater, perform nightly to a small crowd for $5 a ticket. Though they don't have much, and most work the odd job on the side, we know that this is their passion. They are best friends who stay in on weekends and dream of being cast on "Weekend Live" (an obvious play on Saturday Night Live, the ultimate goal of most comedians in their 30's). What this movie does so well is try to figure out what would happen if one of these friends actually hit it big. In a tight community of struggling actors, what would happen when it becomes apparent that not everyone is bound for stardom.DON'T THINK TWICE is about as good of a movie as I have seen all year. It's directed by Mike Birbiglia (who also has a costarring role as an improv instructor who just can't seem to catch a break in anything besides romance) and has all the makings of a classic exploration of the human condition. Keegan-Michael Key plays Jay (you may recognize him from MadTV, and I wonder if this at all echoes his rise to fame over the past decade), the most recognizable of the troupe and one who is known to break out a Barack Obama impression when talent scouts are nearby. He is one of the group, but secretly dreams of breaking away. While the other members of Commune feel safe amongst numbers, Jay knows there is much more he is capable of.Jay dates Samantha (Gillian Jacobs is absolutely incredible in this role), a quirky girl who is nearly the exact opposite of him. She is shy in front of large groups but performs improv with ease every night. Both her and Jay get asked to audition for Weekend Live (to the frustration of the rest of the cast) and yet on the day of her audition, she chickens out and decides that maybe it's not for her. Jay is cast on the spot following his audition. He tries to talk to her that night about what went wrong, and already we know that this relationship is doomed to fall apart.The ensemble cast is all around remarkable. In a group of six performers, each is fleshed out and given a soul. Allison is the tiny girl who dreams of publishing a graphic novel. Lindsay comes from wealth and yet still collects unemployment checks to save her from having to find a real job. Bill is arguably the funniest of the bunch, awkward with glasses, trying to cope with the fact that his father is near death.The fun with the movie comes from their performances on stage. Filmed hand-held and constantly circling the cast, comedy seeps through the screen as though we were watching the intimate comedy routine in person. We start to understand the ins and outs of improvisation, and yet this is in no way a movie about improv in general. It's an honest, timeless human drama that simply uses live television where a classic story might have just used a knife in the back.There is such heart in the story, in the characters, and by the end (as clichéd as it may sound) it really felt as though I was beginning to know these people in and out. As Jay becomes more famous, the audiences begin taking requests for him to play some of his TV characters (though he is now cast on TV, he still returns to the Commune to help his friends and perform more casually alongside them). The rest of the cast becomes frustrated while Jay just soaks his fame up. Eventually it builds to the point where they perform a skit in which Jay has finally died and they circle his coffin, remembering him for the airhead he was. Everything they say is true, and the audience laughs and laughs. Amidst the realization of failure, maybe the movie is trying to tell us that the best thing to do is just laugh. It seems to work.

Don't think twice follows the lives of a group of actors playing in an improv group in New York City. They're not just colleagues, but have formed a friendship and together, sitting on and around the same couch they watch Weekend Live (read Saturday Night Live) and hope to one day become part of the talented pool of people working on the TV show. When one member of the group gets picked up by Weekend Live, the groups' friendship is put at the test.Trying to make it is the central theme of this movie. Writer, director and actor Mike Birbiglia successfully depicts the motivation behind this inner desire to make it in the comedy business, which helps you understand why some feelings of jealousy arise when that one person actually makes it. When the subject comes up, you can feel the tension in the air, you can feel that some friends simply don't grant this person his/her success. What makes this movie great is that we actually understand these feelings of jealousy. The other members aren't jealous for the sake of being jealous, they start to realize they might not make it after all, maybe they aren't good enough, they start to question their future.Throughout the entire movie, you feel like you're watching real people and not just characters. This is thanks to the great directing, writing and acting of the entire cast. The most interesting character was the one Birbiglia plays himself, Miles. He's an improv teacher and there are some great contradictions between his life and passion for improv. He has a routine life, comes back home with the same kind of girls, tells the same joke to each one of them and seems to be stuck in his routine. There's everything but improvisation in his life. Watching his character develop and handle his frustrations was an interesting aspect of the movie. Birbiglia's talent as a writer becomes again very clear in a scene near the end of the movie, between Jack and Samantha (Keegan- Michael Key and Gillian Jacobs), that has a lot of emotional power and contains some clever double meaning. Unfortunately, there are also some flatter characters that didn't add much to the movie. Some dialogues and scenes didn't build the character they intended to do. Also, the ending of the movie worked, made sense, but somehow felt too easyNevertheless, 'Don't Think Twice' is a wrongfully overlooked movie because it's so relatable to anyone with a dream. Making it isn't a given and realizing it might as well never happen can be devastating. On the other hand, as one character shows, some people don't have to make it to be happy.