The Comedian

This is a fine simple story of a guy realizing his life has stalled in one spot and he cannot see the end of the tunnel. Ed hates his job for it is unfulfilling and he simply will not advance from his current status, he shares an apartment with a girl to which he has become emotionally attached but she is not attracted to him. He has ambition to be a stand up comedian but that appears to be at a dead end. He meets Nathan and the two are not really fully compatible as friends or lovers, and to top it off he feels as a misfit in his own family.

Writer/Director Tom Shkolnik has cleanly created a film showing us the man Ed and his internal emotional conflicts that take him on a troublesome course of self discovery, wanting, and disappointment. Ed basically hits bottom by the end of the film. And I believe that is what Ed had to do to begin again and find his way back up to a meaningful life.

Shkolnik smartly shows us at the ending of this story how through a simple conversation with the cab driver, someone Ed has never met before, how Ed realizes that everybody has problems in life and his are no different from somebody else's. These problems just happen to be his and you can see through the expression on his face that he's going to be alright.

This excellent mumblecore flick makes you feel his confusions, his emptiness, his longing for purpose!