Making people laugh for a living is as great a high for me as any drug out there. Don’t Think Twice goes deep inside baseball on the people who like to make that happen. Smartly focusing on the world of improv comedy, Don’t Think Twice is a poignant study of how fame can affect a team of laugh creators who need cohesion and group think to function. Yes and….wait for me, if you will.
The group mind belongs to an house improv troupe in New York City. Samantha (Gillian Jacobs) and Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) are the stars, having just received auditions for a Saturday Night Live type show. Their personal success has to cause conflicted feelings for the other team members, like troupe leader Miles (Mike Birbiglia), rich girl Lindsay (Tami Sagher), and awkward Allison (Kate Micucci) and Bill (Chris Gethard). This group then has to come with terms with what will happen as some move onward and upward.
Full disclosure: I was in various improv groups for 3 years, so my investment in this story was sky high. Don’t Think Twice nails the life of a troupe of improv comedians. The improv world the movie creates is spot on. From afar, these people appear cult-like: they make weird noises and live in the world of inside jokes. They perform for the joy of it because performers get $0 for the laughs, and have to work terrible jobs and live in crappy situations to just make ends meet. But that personal team connection is the biggest reason to keep going. The group spontaneously builds upon one another to make something unfunny funny, or something funny funnier. Yes, you feel more free to speak the truth to these people, because the connection forged usually supersedes any petty issues within the group. That fascinating vacillation between abusive and supportive between improv friends has not quite been covered in a movie, making Don’t Think Twice the standard for crafting a movie about improvisational comedy.
The 6 leads also deserve credit for bringing the mindset and archetypes alive. Mike Birbiglia wrote and directed this movie, so he clearly knows how to act as the leader who’s been left behind by more talented friends. Birbiglia finds the undercurrent of sadness and anger that drives Miles’s jealously of his more successful team members. Keegan-Michael Key deserves credit for grounding the success of his character, not easy for someone as charming as he is. Jack has to balance the stress of a new dream job with trying to help his friends achieve similar dreams, something Key shows with growing exasperation. Tami Sagher gets better as the movie goes on, at first playing the rich member of the team but growing some edginess and confidence as the movie goes on. Kate Micucci gets underwritten as the underachiever, fittingly I guess, but she’s a nice glue person for the team. Chris Gethard can play the awkward person in his sleep, but here he gets to show some stellar dramatic chops trying to reconnect with his dying father and dealing with people who don’t know how to behave around a situation like that. But once again, Gillian Jacobs stands out. Jacobs continues to prove why she needs more roles with Samantha, who struggles with her personal comfort with the comedy troupe while facing down the potential of the group’s breakup. Jacobs hits emotional beats of fear, confidence, vulnerability, strength, and joy scene to scene with ease, besting the rest of the talented cast.
Improv comedy can be a great way to shake up your life. It can also cause you to enter a cycle of co-dependency amongst people you inevitably get very close to. Such is the dichotomy and excitement displayed in Don’t Think Twice, which paints a mostly accurate picture of what you might be getting yourself into just because you want someone to laugh. Is it worth it though? Take it from me, 100%.