A Better You (2014)
Dr. Ron Knight (Huskey) is a Los Angeles hypnotherapist who sees clients in his home, trying, often to little avail, to put his patients under and hopes that suggestion can cure their vices when they awake. But mostly, he wants to hock his self-published book to them about getting the ‘411’ about their ‘911’ and other catchy marketing-related platitudes worthy of slapping on bumper stickers, municipal benches, and late-night TV ads. As much as he’d like to think he’s helping people, his own life is in a shambles, as his wife Margo (Morgan Walsh) wants out, his kids find him dull, his neighbors can’t stand the way he works or lives, and he doesn’t have any friends he can talk to.
A Better You is the brainchild of director/co-writer Matt Walsh and star/co-writer Brian Huskey, utilizing the entirely improvised, sketch-comedy style Walsh regularly teaches at the UCB Theatre in LA and New York, which he helped co-found. Before his career in comedy, Walsh had also studied to become a psychologist, though his actual occupation has come in finding the humor is many of the practices pushed forward today than in actual casework. Comedy can be seen as its form of healing therapy, so perhaps he has found his calling after all.
Though a comedy at its core, the film offers a somewhat critical look at alternative therapy, particularly in Southern California, and how many solutions are provided for people in need from people who haven’t gotten life all figured out themselves. From hypnotherapy, aromatherapy, reiki, and many others, all promise a new way to bring back purpose and focus on one’s life. Still, if one looks at the actual experiences of those who profess to have the keys to fixing your woes, many of them could stand to find an alternate solution for themselves.
Outside of an original outline that Walsh and Huskey drew up before filming, the Indiegogo-funded film is shot without a script, featuring a whole array of improvisational comedians who manage to come up with some humorous moments and characters. Along those lines, it’s a commendable effort, undoubtedly worthy of admiration for the depth of comedic characterizations that are drawn out, especially by Huskey (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Anthony Perkins when donning the obvious wig), who nails the stuck-up educated type who thinks he knows more about how life should be lived than the people who manage to live their lives with more enthusiasm. I especially have to give kudos for Andrew Daly for providing me with the moments I find most amusing, as the pompous and smarmy neighbor who can’t stand the collection of cigarette butts that are accumulating in the gutter outside of Dr. Knight’s abode.
For as conceptually astute as the reasons behind the film are, and for as talented a cast and creative team as A Better You brings together. Unfortunately, I can’t entirely give the movie a recommendation. It’s amusing in spots, but not funny enough as a whole to carry a full-length feature. It might have been hilarious as a 30-minute short, but at 90 minutes, redundant jokes, extraneous characters, and scenes that have that filler feel eventually produce an excessive amount of lulls, to the point where momentum doesn’t escalate enough to provide the fits and giggles one might expect. I won’t go so far as to say A Better You needs a better script (or even just a script), but it definitely could have used a few more couch sessions of brainstorming before it was deemed ready to take on the world.
Qwipster’s rating: C
MPAA Rated: Not rated, but would be R for sexual references and language
Running Time: 88 min.
Cast: Brian Huskey, Morgan Walsh, Horatio Sanz, Andrew Daly, Matt Walsh, Erinn Hayes, Joe Lo Truglio, Rob Huebel
Director: Matt Walsh
Screenplay: Brian Huskey, Matt Walsh