Brigsby Bear (2017) review

Dir. Dave McCary

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

“Everyone says they want to help me but no one can find me the new episode of Brigsby.” – James, Brigbsy Bear

James (Kyle Mooney) is a man in his mid-twenties, living in a cozy subterranean bunker ala 10 Cloverfield Lane with his parents Ted and April (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams). Kept a hermit by his parents, James is permitted only to entertain himself by watching television and using dial-up internet. The only show James watches, however, is an educational children’s show called Brigsby Bear, which features an adorable, anthropomorphic bear that inhabits a fictional world with several other peculiar characters. Over the years, James has become obsessed with the program, hoarding VHS tapes and memorabilia from the show that provide comfort for him like a nursery does for a child.

One day, James sneaks outside of his bunker to see a swarm of police officers raid his home and arrest his parents. Vogel (Greg Kinnear), a detective dispatched to work on the case, informs James that Ted and April kidnapped him when he was an infant. Pouring salt in this devastating wound is the fact that Brigsby Bear is also not a real television show, but one made by Ted and April in a studio they frequently rented out. These bombshells lead James to meeting his real parents, Greg and Louise (Matt Walsh and Michaela Watkins), as well as their teenage daughter Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins), before going home with them a changed person forever.

But James’s years of forced reclusive behavior render him socially inept and almost completely unable to function without being in front of a TV-set at all times. When all his Brigsby Bear tapes and trinkets are seized for FBI investigation, he becomes a soul displaced, affectionately aided by Aubrey, who tries to welcome him into her (much younger) social circle, only to have James’s inability to communicate compound his difficultly with functioning normally.

I can say more, but I’d prefer not to, for that would ruin the tender and sentimental surprise that is Brigsby Bear. Produced by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone, the trio that were once known as “The Lonely Island” of Saturday Night Live, the film is the first major work by the writing/directing team of Mooney, Dave McCary, and Kevin Costello, the former two presently a part of Saturday Night Live. This unassuming detail to most viewers actually acts as a ceremonious “pass of the torch” in some sense, as Mooney, McCary, and Costello present themselves as assured in the realm of clever writing and emotionally potent direction — a logical evolution from the early 2010s when the Lonely Island was incredibly popular. Brigsby Bear never feels too absurd for its own good (IE: Lemon, Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job!) nor does it ever wear out its welcome or misstep poorly enough to be considered too sappy. It’s a pleasantly balanced work of understated comedy and heartwarming drama.

More importantly, Mooney and Costello, the film’s credited writers, avoid possibly the worst pitfall they could’ve when writing this film and that’s making James a character to laugh at rather than laugh with, and even then, there’s not too much of the latter. James could’ve been Napoleon Dynamite with childhood trauma, but instead, he’s lovingly portrayed as someone not much different than many of us despite the social awkwardness. He is a self-conscious person, deeply aided by the comfort a talking bear mascot brings him, as it’s the only thing besides his parents that’s served as a tangible constant in his life. Cataloging the various episodes and blogging about it on a closed-circuit server (unbeknownst to James at the time) with “other people” gave James a sense of placement in a world he found to be made up of only the small pleasures found in a cheesy television program.

Brigsby Bear shows us how the oddities of our childhood that we frequently look back on and chuckle about can serve as empathy machines, so to speak, as we continue in the long journey of life. If I had to erase every conversation I’ve ever had with some about a television program, a book series, or a video-game I deeply connected with as a child — as well as the subsequent relationships and outcomes those conversations caused — I would probably have exorbitantly less friends than I do now. And for that matter, life wouldn’t be as beautiful either. There is a connective tissue held in the nostalgic aspects of our childhoods, both shared and unique to other people. When James realizes how Brigsby has the ability to unite his friends and family in ways he didn’t come to expect (or perhaps expected all along, given his situation), he gets a sense of the empathy he initially lacks as well as the ability to resonate with other people thanks to the same quirky unifier.

When Mooney and Costello begin to convince the audience this isn’t a straight-forward comedy by finding ways to give the screenplay a sweet texture as opposed to blanketing it with cynical tropes, the film becomes something more significant. Regardless of how big of a Lonely Island fan I am, this was one aspect they not only negated in their films but also never showed much interest in emphasizing to any degree of seriousness. The Lonely Island were more about straight comedy whereas this newfound troupe has an eye for whimsicality and attention-to-detail in creating sets that enclose worlds (consider how elaborate the “Brigsby Bear” memorabilia is, let alone the eventual works that the characters create in an attempt to further the character and his potential).

There are few things in film more gratifying than seeing a project with a very peculiar premise succeed on its own merits, and Brigsby Bear offers that pleasure for audience. It’s a sincere movie that somewhat miraculously avoids miscalculating the extent of its sweet-touch, but also never misrepresents when to place a little bit of comedy into the story. The same cinephiles that demand more originality and good films from people we’ve never heard of might find something they’re looking for in Brigsby Bear as well as the potential for a little something extra they weren’t quite expecting.

Starring: Kyle Mooney, Greg Kinnear, Mark Hamill, Claire Danes, Matt Walsh, Michaela Watkins, Jane Adams, and Ryan Simpkins. Directed by: Dave McCary.