Chub­by Funny

Spring­ing from a deep well of humil­i­a­tion-based obser­va­tion­al com­e­dy large­ly ema­nat­ing from the small screen, Har­ry Michell’s Chub­by Fun­ny is a fea­ture debut which strug­gles to tran­scend its assort­ed influ­ences. Michell him­self essays the tou­sle-haired and gen­er­ous­ly pro­por­tioned aspi­rant actor, Oscar, who has giv­en him­self one year to snag a decent role and kick start his career. Holed up in a pokey Lon­don flat with his slight­ly more street smart and con­ven­tion­al­ly attrac­tive chum, Char­lie (Augus­tus Prew), he is quick­ly over­whelmed by a qua­si-bohemi­an lifestyle which requires far more organ­i­sa­tion­al nous and matu­ri­ty than he was plan­ning for or possesses.

The film locks into a com­fort­able gear ear­ly on and then main­tains cruise con­trol. Michell strug­gles to bring more to Oscar than the con­ven­tion­al traits of the trag­ic idiot in a per­for­mance which veers wild­ly between forced hep­cat cool and juve­nile self-sab­o­tage. The unnat­ur­al man­ner in which he deliv­ers dia­logue, which involves lots of rep­e­ti­tion and spo­ken inner mono­logue, often flat­tens any poten­tial humour. It’s a brash com­ic mode which only high­lights the essen­tial super­fi­cial­i­ty of the script, and becomes increas­ing­ly irri­tat­ing across fea­ture length.

Its episod­ic nar­ra­tive, too, offers lit­tle that feels fresh or excit­ing, with Oscar lurch­ing towards degra­da­tion or con­fu­sion in a pro­ces­sion of ugly urban set­tings. Chub­by Fun­ny aspires to a rough-hewn real­ism, which it achieves briefly in an ear­ly par­ty scene, but quick­ly set­tles in to build­ing up con­trived sit­u­a­tions which almost trans­late as fan­ta­sy. You can see the actors light­ly riff­ing around a boil­er­plate cen­tral con­ceit which nev­er quite hits home.

A sequence in which Oscar films an adver­tise­ment for a choco­late bar dressed as a human-squir­rel hybrid swipes for low hang­ing fruit, as do the scenes in which Oscar vis­its an off licence to argue with its snap-talk­ing immi­grant pro­pri­etor. There are also unnec­es­sary, cute affec­ta­tions which instant­ly dis­con­nect you fur­ther from the per­ceived real­i­ty: Oscar writes on a type­writer (even though he owns a lap­top); he falls into a his-’n’-hers bath with an old flame.

Sex­u­al­i­ty plays a key part in deter­min­ing the rela­tion­ship between Oscar and Char­lie, but even on this lev­el, the film is at best indis­tinct and at worst con­fused. Oscar is a sup­pos­ed­ly pro­gres­sive het­ero­sex­u­al who’s will­ing to spoon with Char­lie in a pla­ton­ic, matey fash­ion, but balks when Char­lie lat­er admits to being gay. It’s dif­fi­cult to dis­cern whether Michell is tap­ping into a latent strain of homo­pho­bia with­in Oscar, or sug­gest­ing that Oscar is him­self gay (or at least bi-sex­u­al), or it’s all just part of a big­ger plot con­struc­tion to make Oscar’s even­tu­al fall even more spec­tac­u­lar. What­ev­er the out­come, there’s no inter­est­ing broad­er point being made about the con­nec­tion between flu­id sex­u­al­i­ty and inter­per­son­al relationships.

Add to the fact that the film is bad­ly lit and flat­ly shot (Lon­don has sel­dom looked this drably anony­mous on screen – maybe that’s inten­tion­al?) and it’s not look­ing good. The sense here is that Michell has attempt­ed to tell a sto­ry which cleaves tight­ly to indie con­ven­tion rather than take advan­tage of the cre­ative free­dom afford­ed by a micro bud­get. Which is a shame as there’s clear­ly a feel for per­for­mance and char­ac­ter-build­ing on show, added to Mitchell’s own on-screen brava­do and will­ing­ness to self-abase.

It’s the young actor Isabel­la Laugh­land who brings some respite as Oscar’s scat­ty, wannabe journo para­mour, Sophie. She’s the only actor in the film who doesn’t look like she’s strain­ing for some kind of deep­er pathos. It’s an appeal­ing and un-self­con­scious per­for­mance, and you can’t help but wish that she’d been nudged cen­tre stage for this one. Her vim and ener­gy make for a spright­ly con­trast to Oscar’s whinge­bag schtick which only serves to cement his fail­ure as an inevitabil­i­ty from the first scene onwards.