From the GATW Archives: TIFF 2010 Video Interview: IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY co-writers/co-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden
Writing/Directing team Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden first burst on the scene in 2006 with HALF NELSON, which is full of awesomeness and almost won Ryan Gosling an Academy Award for Best Actor. A few years later they debuted their second feature, SUGAR. This go around they took their first stab at adapting for IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY. In FUNNY STORY, high schooler Craig (Keir Gilchrist) checks himself into a hospital after wanting to kill himself. What he didn’t know was that he’d be staying in the adult wing of a psychiatric ward for five days. There he meets a girl, Noelle (Emma Roberts), and learns about life with a fellow crazy, played by Zach Galifianakis.
One of the topics we discuss in the interview is the comparison from the book to the script; a few things were changed and of course they couldn’t fit the whole book into a feature. If you’ve read It’s Kind of a Funny Story, you’ll really appreciate the style Fleck and Boden use to help explain the book’s full story.