Tim Heidecker not so funny in 'The Comedy'

  • Tim Heidecker stars in 'The Comedy,' a cutting edge character study.
Tim Heidecker stars in 'The Comedy,' a cutting edge character… (TRIBECA FILM, CONTRIBUTED…)
November 08, 2012|By Amy Longsdorf, Special to The Morning Call

Allentown's Tim Heidecker was wrapping up his five-season run as the star, writer and director of the Adult Swim series "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" when he got a call from filmmaker Rick Alverson.

Heidecker had never met Alverson but he listened with interest to the director's pitch for "The Comedy," a cutting-edge character study that would come to polarize audiences at this year's Sundance Film Festival.

"Rick told me he had this idea about rich hipsters in Brooklyn who were all terrible guys," Heidecker says. "He said, 'It'll have A Clockwork Orange-sensibility and we'll explore the ways that comedy can be used as a weapon, a shield and a means to disconnect from the world.'"

Heidecker said yes on the spot. "All of these [themes] interested me. I just found Rick's ideas really compelling."

"The Comedy" is now available on Video on Demand as well as on such digital platforms as iTunes, Amazon Instant Video and Vudu. On Friday it debuts in Los Angeles, and next Friday it opens in New York. A DVD release will follow.

When "The Comedy" premiered at Sundance in January, it caused instant controversy. Variety, IndieWire and Film Threat gave the film good reviews but it was also one of the most walked-out-of movies of the fest.

What is it about "The Comedy" that gets audiences all riled up?

"I don't really know and I don't really care," says Heidecker from his home in Los Angeles. "It doesn't have the traditional beats that a lot of Hollywood films have. It has intense language and that might upset some uptight people.

"We didn't set out to make a Disney film. We weren't trying to make it appeal to everybody. It's not for kids and it's certainly not for my grandparents. But I think movies should be about all kinds of people not just about people that we wish we could be."

In the flick, Heidecker plays Swanson, a rich guy who's on the cusp of inheriting his ailing father's fortune. When he's not drinking beer with his pals (LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy and Heidecker's "Tim and Eric" partner Eric Wareheim), he's discussing Adolf Hitler's digestive problems, humiliating the male nurse caring for his father or pretending that he needs a job as a dishwasher.

If anything, "The Comedy" is a tragedy about a man who occasionally seems bereft of human feeling. "It's a joke, the title," says Heidecker. "It's a movie called 'The Comedy' but it's not a comedy. The title should really have quotes around it. I think it's a bit provocative to disorient the audience [from the get-go]."

Swanson could be described as an anti-hero but Heidecker has a better description of him. "He's really kind of a piece of s---," says the actor, 36. "We approached him as, basically, me with an id that's out of control. He has no regulators left on the words that come out of his mouth."

One of the most squirm-inducing scenes finds Swanson talking trash to a bar full of African-American men. Even though the guys playing the patrons weren't actors, Heidecker insists the scene wasn't as awkward to shoot as it looks.

"The director told the guys, 'Tim is going to come out and say some really offensive things. He's going to act like a prick.' The guys were cool …In the movie, it looks severe. But when we were shooting the scene, it was nothing but fun."

Still, Heidecker needed to work himself up before the sequence. He took a few swigs of beer and raced around the block and did a handful of push-ups right before shooting the scene.

"I wanted there to be an air of desperation and I wanted to look sweaty and high and edgy and on my last frayed nerve," he says. "I wanted to get my heartbeat up."

Much of the nonsense that Swanson spouts was improvised on the spot by Heidecker. "I know how to push buttons," he says. "It's not that hard to be offensive."

Some critics have suggested that Swanson, with his mounds of cash and air of disaffection, is a stand-in for America. Heidecker agrees with that interpretation, up to a point.

"Both Rick and I came [to the movie] from a political perspective. And we both feel that [America] is an incredibly spoiled, irresponsible country in terms of how we use our resources.

"But I don't think it's a pure allegory. I think when you're watching the movie, you might think, 'Hey, what are we doing with our time? How are we treating each other?' If those kinds of questions come out of the movie, then I think it's a success."

At the very least, Swanson seems like a representative of a generation with too much time on its hands.

"I believe there's a kind of depravity that grows out of leisure," says the actor. "If we're not careful, we can become disconnected from the world. All we're connected to is our cell phones and the Internet and our small circle of friends.

"We've become disconnected from things like manual labor. A lot of us don't even do our own lawns anymore."

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