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It's Kind of a Funny Story | 2010 | PG-13 | - 5.3.5
A 16 year old boy (Keir Gilchrist) is so depressed that he goes to the hospital and asks to be admitted for psychiatric evaluation, fearing that he might try to commit suicide, not realizing that the minimum stay is 5 days. While at the psychiatric ward, he begins to understand that his life may not be so bad after all. Also with Emma Roberts, Viola Davis, Lauren Graham, Jim Gaffigan, Zoe Kravitz, Zach Galifianakis and Aasif Mandvi. Directed by Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden. [1:41]
SEX/NUDITY 5 - A teen girl wears a low-cut top that reveals cleavage and bare shoulders, she and a teen boy go into his room, they kiss, she pushes him back onto a bed, climbs on top of him and they kiss; he caresses her clothed breast and they are interrupted by a man who yells at them for "making sex on my bed."
► A teen boy and a teen girl kiss and hug several times. A teen girl kisses a teen boy on the cheek. A teen boy talks about making out with a teen girl.
► A teen boy tells another teen boy, "I tried to make out with your girlfriend." A teen boy remembers watching a teen girl and another teen boy "flirt punch" each other and then wrestle on the floor and he says, "That eventually led to sex." A man tells a teen boy that he should ask a girl out on a date. A man makes a few references to "beaver" and he is often misunderstood as referring to something sexual but we are shown at one point that he is talking about the animal. A teen girl asks a teen boy, "Are you a virgin?" A man tells a teen boy that he should be out "bird-doggin' chicks." A man talks about having "lots of women" and describes himself in sexual terms. A man talks about "hot chicks." A teen boy tells a man, "I heard that you tried to rape a penguin at the zoo." A man talks about needing to be careful in the shower because people "will peek in on you…"
► A man pretends to be a teen girl (he raises the tenor of his voice and acts effeminate) so that a teen boy can practice asking a girl out on a date. A teen boy imagines himself at a party with two women. A teen boy and a teen girl flirt in a few scenes.
► We see a line drawing of a penis and testicles. A teen boy imagines a teen girl in a bathtub (she's covered with bubbles except for her lower leg). A teen girl poses nude for an artist's drawing (we see only her bare shoulders). A teenage girl wears low-cut tops that reveal cleavage in a few scenes. A woman wears a low-cut top that reveals cleavage. Two women wear low-cut dresses that reveal cleavage. A teen boy wears a jacket that's open in the front and reveals his bare chest and abdomen.
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VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - In a dream a young man walks across an exposed girder on a bridge over lanes of speeding traffic and falls off into water below.
► A man yells at a teen boy and a teen girl, whom he finds kissing while on his bed; he waves a blanket at them and yells, the boy vomits (we see goo and hear a splat) and the girl runs out of the room. A teen boy vomits on his family while seated at a restaurant table (we see the vomit spray and splatter on them) and the boy talks about "stress vomiting." A teen boy vomits (we see the goo).
► Two men argue in a few scenes. A man argues over the telephone with someone, who we understand to be his wife or ex-wife, about seeing his daughter. A man covers his face with a pillow and screams; then he pulls books off shelves while yelling until three other men come into the room and take him away (we understand that he is given a sedative).
► A teen girl is shown with scars on her face and arms from apparent self-injuries. People in a psychiatric unit are heard yelling and are seen acting erratically in several scenes. A teen boy becomes nervous when he sees his roommate lying in bed, covered with a blanket and in what appears to be a deep depression. We see patients of a psychiatric unit and some appear to be sedated and catatonic.
► A teen boy is checked into a psychiatric unit. A young man imagines his family questioning what he is doing while he is contemplating suicide. A teen boy goes to a hospital and tells the registration nurse, "I wanna kill myself." We hear that a man attempted suicide 6 times. A teen boy tells another teen boy, "Don't kill yourself." A woman yells at and insults a man while they are gathered in a room with a young girl (we understand that she's their daughter); she tells him, "It would be better if you were dead." A man talks about another man who "shot himself instead of giving in to a coup." We hear that a man is a schizophrenic. A man asks a teen boy if he has any "puke stories." A man talks about another man having eaten a dollar. A man says, "My hemorrhoids are acting up." We hear about and see people "zonked out on their meds."
► A man hands another man a crumpled dollar bill, they talk about the man having eaten the bill earlier, and the man receiving it appears concerned about where the bill came from. A woman smells the telephone receiver after a teen boy uses it.
LANGUAGE 5 - About 1 F-word, 1 obscene hand gesture, 7 sexual references, 7 scatological terms, 5 anatomical terms, 4 mild obscenities, name-calling (tranny, dumb, psycho, schizo, crazy, messed up, acid head, gross looking, perv, weird, social reject), 5 religious exclamations.
SUBSTANCE USE - People in a psychiatric unit line up to receive their medications, a man talks about being on Adovan, we are told that a man had a bad trip on acid, a teen boy talks about using Zoloft, a man gives another man two pills in exchange for allowing him and a teen boy access to a basketball court, and a teen boy asks another teen boy, "Can you get me Vicodin?" A teen boy imagines himself holding two cocktails. A young man smokes a cigarette, and a man asks a teen boy if he has a cigarette.
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Teen suicide, suicide, depression, self-injury, pressures of life, pressure to succeed and achieve, parenting, divorce, fatherhood, homelessness, expectations, disappointment, romantic crushes, having no friends, rejection, imagination, creativity, competitiveness, pity, self pity, self indulgence, the Patriot Act, mental illness.
MESSAGE - You can't live your life in fear.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
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