Brigsby Bear

By: Alex Elias

Brigsby Bear is a difficult movie to categorize and that’s a good thing. It’s a thoroughly unique film which, for all intents and purposes, is a coming-of-age story. Only, our protagonist James Pope (Kyle Mooney) is already an adult.

James’ living circumstances are somewhat unorthodox. He’s what one might call an “otaku,” which is the Japanese word for someone obsessed with computers or pop culture to the detriment of their social skills. However, James’ media of choice is not anime, but rather a semi-live-action children’s educational program that has become his obsession. The show also functions as the fuel that keeps James going when things at home get tough. Early on in the film James’ world is thrown into disarray and chaos becomes his new normal. James is unwittingly thrust into a world of unknowns where the only constant is his irrefutable love for the children’s show “Brigsby Bear,” a series that he is the only person to have ever seen.

Throughout the course of the film James fights against his upbringing and must rely on the awkward and outdated social skills he’s been taught by watching “Brigsby Bear” to assimilate himself into the world. Before long, in spite of his oddities, James has found himself a group of friends who are drawn to him because of his childlike wonder and optimism. He introduces his friends to the world of “Brigsby Bear” while they in turn introduce him to the world he’s never been a part of. As a new member of society with none of the limitations he had in the past, James looks deep inside of himself to discover that he can evolve his passion for Brigsby into an artform and attempts to make a movie on his own – with a little help from his friends.

Brigsby Bear is wonderfully endearing.  For lack of a more sophisticated word, the film is almost quintessentially what one would refer to as “cute.”  The IMDB description for Brigsby is left intentionally vague so as not to spoil some of the shocking twists you’ll experience at the very beginning, which then go on to shape the course of the entire film. I, too, did my best not to spoil these for you. In fact, I thought the writers (Kyle Mooney and Kevin Costello) did a particularly good job at setting up these twists. As you watch through James’ perspective, you (the audience) are only aware of what James is aware of so when change comes a knockin’, you too are taken aback.

Brigsby Bear, as a film, does many things well. I mentioned before that James is a bit of an oddball. It’s true his bizarre personality has been shaped by his circumstances, but to everyone other than James who didn’t live through what he did, he’s just an exceedingly weird individual. With this in mind, the writers developed James in a way that when you strip away his quirks, underneath is a whole-heartedly relatable character. James possesses the same desire to be loved and accepted that we all share and has a level of enthusiasm on the outside which we all feel on the inside. One thing that I really liked about Brigsby Bear is that no one in the film ever comes after James with the intent of being truly nasty to him. It perfectly demonstrates the positive aspects of a small community; one filled with compassion. This isn’t to say that everything goes well and there are no conflicts in the film, only that you’re not going to meet with a cliché tale of a weird guy being bullied because of his eccentricities. It’s refreshing, to say the least.

My primary critique of film is that it lacks sufficient ideas. It has what I would say was an “interesting” premise; however, a good story is one with a solid beginning, middle and end and I felt that while Brigsby’s beginning was promising, its middle was extremely forgettable and its end had minimal external impact. What I mean by external impact is that I didn’t walk away from the film thinking about its resolution. It just…didn’t stick with me. It was almost as if you could take all the events that happen in the middle of the movie, re-arrange them or switch-them all out for other scenes entirely and you’d still come out with the same result. To give you a tasty analogy, Brigsby Bear’s structure is sort of like if you had a sandwich with wonderfully delicious, chewy bread, but thin brand-name deli meats inside and only one layer of cheese. The end result is that the sandwich was pretty good, but nothing spectacular. You enjoyed it while you ate it, but you never gave it a second thought when you were done – except in writing the review for it!

Other small critiques are that certain scenes go on longer than they need to and begin to drag. There are even a few scenes director, Dave McCrary, could have cut-out all-together. And there wasn’t enough of a hook. By hook, I mean that action movies are intended to entertain, comedies to make you laugh and horror films to frighten you – but I couldn’t actually discern what was the intent for Brigsby. It kind of just …existed. Kind of like a made-for-TV or Lifetime movie; they kind of just …are. They aren’t bad, some people even love them, but you’re not going to end up talking about it for the next month and write it down in your list of all-time favorites.

Overall, I’d say that Brigsby Bear is indeed worth seeing. It’s a film that will have you smiling as you reflect back on your own life. A heart-warming little feel-good peace. Brigsby Bear is a family-friendly movie and I believe young children may enjoy it as well. Though, you probably shouldn’t invite that guy who only likes action movies because he will be very bored. So, basically, don’t invite my dad.