Title: Funny Bones
Year: 1995
Director: Peter Chelsom
Writers: Chelsom and Peter Flannery
Stars: Oliver Platt, Lee Evans, Jerry Lewis, Leslie Caron

The Story: Surreal, funny, heartbreaking magic-realist comedy-drama about a failed American comedian who absconds to the faded resort town of Blackpool, England, where his father performed when he was a child, hoping to steal material from the local comics. Instead, he uncovers his father’s secrets and discovers he has a monstrously funny half-brother.

Why It’s Great: This movie seemed to announce Chelsom as a major writer/director, but his follow-up (The Mighty) was a flop and his next (Town and Country) was a notorious mega-flop, so he was done, and this movie was unfortunately forgotten. This movie also seemed like it would turn Platt and Evans into major stars. They both give intense lead performances. Platt has been too often relegated to “fat friend” roles, which was perhaps inevitable, but the utter disappearance of Evans is stranger. He’s a revelation here, like a strange combination of Sean Penn and Jim Carrey. He’s been rarely seen again, which makes this one of the great one-off performances I’ve seen. This is a funny movie, but it’s more interested in being aboutcomedy, which is an inherently painful subject. The opening sequence, where Platt bombs in Vegas, is as excruciating as a horror film. The whole movie explores the symbiotic relationship between comedy and brutality. As Evans rhetorically asks, “You can’t pull your punches, can you?”