Word: humor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Billy died of pancreatic cancer, the same disease that claimed his father in 1953 and his sister Ruth in 1983. He was 51. The cancer and a year of experimental treatments had taken a fearful physical toll. But, having already overcome so much in his life, he retained his humor and irony almost...
...there is a line between humor and reality. Steven and Lilah approach that line from different sides, and as each comes closer to seeing it from the other's perspective, the bond between them grows. Steven has not told his father, a well-known doctor, that he has dropped out of med school. For weeks, this deception provides fodder for his nightly routines at the Gas Station, the comedy club where he is struggling to get his start. But the line is crossed when his father sees him at the club on a night when he'd hoped...
Lilah at first sees her personal life as sacred and devoid of humor. But her earliest real success comes when Steven drags her into a spontaneous appearance at a club. Forced to go on without her prepared Polish jokes, she reaches into her own experiences and gets some real laughs. (Gazing dubiously at the gifts circulating at a bachelorette party in the audience, she quips, "I don't want to do anything intimate with anything that's got a 90-day warranty.") Later, at the Gas Station, her cracks about her own family and sex life bring down the house...
...Field's comedic coach, Hanks is an appealing if sometimes irritating character--but above all, he's funny. His terse, mocking humor overshadows Field, who despite her comic efforts, remains a housewife who tries hard...
What's the punchline, you ask? In Steven's words, "All of our lives are funny. We're God's animated cartoons." Humor can be an escape valve. But it can also be a way of expression, and for both Steven and Lilah, it becomes a means of sublimating the unhappy truths of their lives...