It’s Kind of a Funny Story is based on the incontrovertible premise that, were you to find yourself in the psych ward, there is no one you would be luckier to find locked up in there with you than Zach Galifianakis. This goes double if you are a depressed yet fairly normal-seeming teenager (played in this particular case by United States of Tara’s Keir Gilchrist), because Galifianakis has energy, jokes, wisdom, the desire to play Ping-Pong, and good advice on how to land crazy girls who look like Emma Roberts. After five days with him, you will be smooching chicks, running through the halls to throbbing indie rock, and have learned about the importance of facing up to real life. While, yes, that’s a lot of indie-movie clichés in one trailer, we still have our fingers crossed: It’s Kind of a Funny Story is the work of directing duo Anna Bowden and Ryan Fleck, the pair behind Half Nelson and Sugar, two great, small movies that skirted clichés in genres — school/drug movie, sports movie — full of them. If nothing else, Gilmore Girls’ Lauren Graham totally plays another crying mom in this thing.
