Don’t think twice, watch Don’t Think Twice

Check out Daltrey’s review on our blog here.

Every once in awhile, a movie will come along that completely vibes with where you are in life and embodies your experience in a way that only a good movie could do. It speaks to all the pertinent issues that keep you up at night and while it may not give you a solution to them, the fact that it addresses them at all results in a cathartic experience. I call these “Spirit Movies” (literally a name I just made up). In the past, I can think of only two movies that I’ve experienced this with. One was Fight Club, when I was a rebellious, young teenager full of angst and anger. The other one wasWhiplash, that occurred during a time in my life when I would think about things like what it meant to be great at something. I’ve also been known to dabble on a drum kit here and there, not like, Miles Teller dabble (if there was any doubt the kid could play, well, take alook), but still. Those two movies still stay with me today and remain in my top 5 or 6 movies of all time.

From the moment I first saw the trailer to Don’t Think Twice, I saw some major SM potential. It looked like it had all the elements that I loved. Struggling middle aged adults trying to excel in an unpractical field? Check. People who try to alleviate serious life situations by turning them into jokes and punchlines? Check. Characters vying against impossible odds to overcome their circumstances and achieve their dreams? Check. Overall just sad, emo, depression? D-D-D-D-DOUBLE CHECK! Anyways, you get the point. Don’t Think Twice is a movie that follows six members of an improv comedy troupe in New York called “The Commune”. They have been performing together for years, all in the hopes of getting their big shot, which in their minds is an audition for “Saturday Night Live”, but because the movie couldn’t get the rights to it, they just call it “Weekend Live”. Their lives all take a turn when two of their members get an audition for “Weekend Live” and what follows is a tale of a group of friends trying to achieve their dreams and the harsh realities that come with that.

Now, going into a movie thinking that it will immediately vault into your top 5 to 10 favorite movies of all time might be setting the bar just a tad too high, but I couldn’t help it. The trailer had me hooked. This was either going to be one of the best or worst movies I had ever seen and coming out of it, I can confidently say that it was certainly the former. This film blew all my expectations out of the water and I gotta give shouts to writer/director Mike Birbiglia for conceptualizing a story with characters, relationships, and situations that I think everybody can relate to. The cast is also absolutely superb.

Led by Keegan-Michael Key who is his usual hilarious and charismatic self, you also get incredible performances from people I’ve seen in other stuff, but couldn’t exactly name off the top of my head such as Chris Gethard, Tami Seghar and Kate Micucci. However, the one performance that absolutely blew me away was from Gillian Jacobs who plays a member of the improv group as well as Keegan-Michael Key’s love interest. She plays such a relatable and likable character that every scene she’s in, I just felt myself being drawn to her. By far, the best part of the movie was the climax and without giving too much away, the scene juggles so many emotions at once that even the slightest miscue could have thrown it off, but Jacobs executes it perfectly. The movie lifts you up, breaks your heart into a thousand pieces, and then puts 995 of those pieces back together. It hits so hard that I remember when the credits started rolling, the theatre was as silent as a crypt. We all just sat there, kind of in a daze over everything that we had just seen. It took about a solid 3–5 minutes before anyone really got up to leave.

We live in a world obsessed with nostalgia. The best can only happen in the past. You ask someone what their top five movies are, and I can almost guarantee you that none of them have been made within the last 5 years, 10 years even (undoubtedly this will lead many of my friends listing all their favorite movies that have come out within the last 1–5 years, we also live in a really contrarian world, but that’s a topic for another day). But after watching Don’t Think Twice I think I can confidently say that it’s among the top 5–10 movies I’ve seen and certainly the best movie I’ve seen this year (sorry Captain Fantastic, your run on the podium was fierce, but short lived). Daltrey isn’t around this week, but I liked it so much that I’m pretty sure I’m going to go catch a second showing, I’ll go by myself if I have to! If you haven’t seen it, you have to watch it. But don’t take my word for it, tell em’ Questlove!