Diractors is an ongoing series in which Hassle writer Jack Draper examines films, new and old, whose directors are better known for their work in front of the camera.
The comedian-turned-director is a long lineage. Much more than an actor, the comedian directing a movie comes with a greater amount of baggage than is realized. If actors directing their own movies are begging to be psychoanalyzed, a comedian will only continue this from their time on stage. Think Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, Bob Odenkirk’s Melvin Goes to Dinner, Bob Saget’s Dirty Work, Chris Rock’s Head of State or the essential directing careers of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. The extremely silly new comedy Y2K is in an even more slim line of movies to come from Saturday Night Live alumni: Eddie Murphy’s Harlem Nights, Richard Pryor’s Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, or the directing career of Albert Brooks. All these are always going to be curiosities with what these people look like as unique filmmakers, but the ways in which their movies replicates themselves as people.
It’s clear from these examples that the Saturday Night Live movie a breed that has trouble finding success, and is nearly extinct. Studio comedies in general saw a fast decline in the 2010s, thanks to movies being maybe the 7th or 8th way people consume comedy nowadays. Kyle Mooney’s Y2K (his sophomore feature, having co-written the earnest and overlooked Brigsby Bear) is another situation of a comedian being able to successfully personify their energy into a movie that would feel like a copy of them in the hands of someone else. What begins as something in line with Never Been Kissed, Can’t Hardly Wait or 10 Things I Hate About You (and a pretty good homage at those things at that) quickly evolves into something like Attack The Block, with the rejects against the world. It’s a broad, massive canvas that Mooney and co-writer Evan Winter must work with: “What if Y2K literally happened,” as the 1999 New Years Eve is seen through the eyes of a teenage boy, Eli, (Jaden Martell) trying to muster the courage to confess his crush, popular girl Laura, (Rachel Zegler), all while battling the uprising and rewiring of computing technology at midnight and how they can help stop it.
Immediately when the movie reaches 1/1/2000, the announcement of what movie it is becomes loud and clear. Eli and his best friend, Danny, (Julian Dennison) find their average high school party turned into the end of the world, as electronics from toasters and microwaves to computers gain sentience. Mooney, focused a lot on the sincerity of a high school comedy set in the backdrop of the apocalypse, removes Danny from the movie to take the bridge away from Eli to further connect with Laura to show her that her popular friend group isn’t who she is. If Mooney’s SNL brand and sensibility as a comedian was chaotic sincerity, then Zegler and Martell are up to the task to receive the insanity around them (though Martell is miscast and Zegler’s dry wit works better) and how much the anxious high school crush energy is played up becomes absurd.
Supporting players, such as rejects CJ (Daniel Zolghadri) and Ash (Lachlan Watson), are hilarious; the way they hold onto any interests in times of uncertainty almost predicts doomscrolling. For CJ, it’s rapping, and Ash its her camcorder, both relics of a time when teens grab onto interests like these or even Nü Metal to claim as their own. CJ and Ash have a genuine flirtation that has more of a grit and sadness than the Zegler/Martell relationship, but they’re trying to react to the weirdness around them. Other standouts are Garret (Mooney himself), a video store clerk with dreads whose brain is fried from all the weed but has a soft spot for Eli and Danny when they come to visit. When we circle back to Garret, he is involved in this resistance group against technology I wish we spent more time with. Yet, I really enjoyed it and recommend it, although I can’t help but imagine more challenging version of the movie that is a little less sincere and less vignette-y.
Y2K
2024
dir. Kyle Mooney
91 min.
Opens Friday, 12/6 @ Somerville Theatre, Apple Cinemas, and multiplexes everywhere
