Bo Burnham: Make Happy
2016 · Directed by Christopher Storer, Bo Burnham
Original language: English
- comedy
- music
The story
Combining his trademark wit and self-deprecating humor with original music, Bo Burnham offers up his unique twist on life in this stand-up special about life, death, sexuality, hypocrisy, mental illness and Pringles cans.
What it’s like
Bare stage, a single piano, a white-lit set that reads more like a rehearsal room than a theatre, with the camera mostly holding on Burnham in tight and medium frames and cutting to the audience only when a laugh needs to land. The sound is the core of it: sharp piano-driven songs that lurch between jaunty show tunes and icy, deadpan confession, with the crowd's laughter sometimes left in and sometimes pulled out so the silences feel deliberate. Its vibe is wry, nervy and self-aware, the kind of cheeky unease that suits a late evening alone with the lights low or a sharp-witted night in with friends. Pacing is brisk and jumpy, moving quickly from gag to ballad to digression, and the emotional register swings between giddy absurdity and a bleak, candid look at anxiety, loneliness and the performer's own unease with being looked at. The arc of the hour is a man circling his own discomfort, wanting the laugh and resenting the need for it. Language is frank and sexual references are present, with mentions of sex and bodies in the jokes and songs, but there is no violence or gore; the darkness is psychological rather than physical. It suits viewers who enjoy clever musical comedy with a melancholy edge and don't mind jokes that get uncomfortably close to the bone.
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