Word: steven
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
...night; another, an overweight high school history teacher, endures hissing disdain from the audience--all for the sake of his family, his students and comedy. Romeo (Mark Rydell), the self-concerned club manager, tries to prod and cajole his comics to the top. These characters are left behind as Steven and Lilah rise closer to success, and we feel their disappointment and their dogged perseverance...
There are some implausible moments. Steven's unrequited love for Lilah seems juvenile in contrast to the pedantic approach he takes when teaching her how to be funny. The maternal role she assumes seems much more believable. When Lilah makes a long speech to her family about her proclivity for comedy, her stab at poignancy seems forced: "I love being a mom. I love being a wife, and I love being able to make people laugh...It makes you feel special." The movie succeeds in communicating its theme however indirectly, when the characters reveal their thoughts on stage...
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...