Don’t Think Twice finds the drama in improv

Don’t Think Twice is a bittersweet film about the breakup of an improvisational comedy group, as well as a smart and earnest look into the lives of funny people. A serious comedy infused with heart and honesty, the film is a tribute to improv, as written and directed by Mike Birbiglia. The film offers an honest reflection on the uncertainty, frustration and ambition of striving to make a life in a creative field.

The troupe is called The Commune and includes seven members played by skilled comedic actors Keegan Michael Key, Gillian Jacobs, Chris Gethard, Kate Micucci, Tami Sagher and Birbiglia himself. The film spends its time with these performers both onstage and off, watching them and watching them engage the audience at a seedy theater in lower Manhattan. Onstage, the group works together to achieve comedic miracles, but in the real world, most of the performers are working service jobs, trying to get by.

Each of the members is encountering resistance to this way of life, whether via parental nagging, crushing reality or cold capitalism. As an unwelcome reminder of the tenuous nature of their lifestyle, the club where the group performs is fighting a losing battle against New York gentrification (oddly enough, having been purchased by the Trump Corporation, presumably in between bankruptcies.) They are given a final month of performance unless they can find a new space.

These brilliant, querulous, neurotic individuals flirt, fight and support each other, and each long for the success that seems increasingly likely never to arrive.

In the midst of this tense and terrifically funny struggle, an opportunity suddenly presents itself. Two of the stars of Weekend Live, a Saturday Night Live stand-in, appear at one of the group’s performances, presumably to scout for new recruits to the show. We have already seen the members of The Commune watching Weekend Live together, mocking the staid humor and ludicrous musical guests while each secretly longing to be a part of the program. Each of the characters seeks the kind of security and success that the job could offer, though they all know that it is not a particularly innovative or important program.

While onstage that fateful night, one performer, Jack, (Keegan-Michael Key) utilizes his best skill, an impression of Barack Obama, and gains the ire of his fellow members and the attention of Weekend Live. Jack and the group’s onstage leader Sam, who is also his girlfriend, (Gillian Jacobs) are asked to audition, while the group worries over and supports one member, Bill (Chris Gethard), whose father has been in a near-fatal motorcycle accident. Jack, however, soon becomes a first-year writer with Weekend Live, and becomes relatively well-known for his signature character, an old-timey movie theater ticket-taker. His friends and fellow members of the Commune, seeing his success, each begin to search for the anchors in their lives, with uncertain results.

The ensemble features winning performances all around, with Birbiglia’s script offering brief, honest, painful sketches that bring each of these characters to life. Key is marvelously skillful here as Jack, who wins the job at Weekend Live and desperately tries to keep from losing everything else, devoting himself to illuminating the flaws in his ambitious, grasping performer. Jacobs performs well as one of the centers of the story, a brilliant performer who realizes that improv is her life, even at the cost of her ambition to be more than a teacher.

The conflicts may be a touch predictable, but they play out in new and unexpected ways. The personalities of each member of the group are elucidated clearly enough to make the tensions and the tenderness between them feel lived-in. There’s more nuance in the plot as well, as smaller successes do come in different forms to even those who are left behind by the call of stardom.

All in all, Don’t Think Twice is a funny, thoughtful movie about the art of improv and the pain of ambitions both realized and forestalled. If you’re in the mood for a comedy that will leave you thinking afterwards, this is the movie to see.