I USED TO BE FUNNY Trailer (2024) Rachel Sennott

I USED TO BE FUNNY Trailer (2024) Rachel Sennott

I USED TO BE FUNNY Trailer (2024) Rachel Sennott
© 2024 - Utopia

"I'm worried that you're still not leaving the house." "I showered today…" Utopia has revealed the official trailer for an indie dark comedy titled I Used to be Funny, the feature directorial debut of filmmaker Ally Pankiw. This premiered at last year's SXSW Film Festival and played at the Woodstock, Nashville, Calgary, and Stockholm Film Festivals as well. The film is about Sam, a stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD, who weighs whether or not to join the search for a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. "Writer / director Ally Pankiw's debut feature is both funny and heartbreaking in its honest and refreshing look at trauma and recovery, and how they affect the relationships and communities that shape us." Starring Rachel Sennott as Sam, with Olga Pesta, Jason Jones, Sabrina Jalees, Caleb Hearon, and Ennis Esmer. This seems a bit odd and off-beat, due to the weight of all these emotions it's trying to address in this story. Have a look.

Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Ally Pankiw's I Used to be Funny, direct from YouTube:

I Used to be Funny Poster

I Used To Be Funny is a dark dramedy that follows Sam Cowell (Rachel Sennott), an aspiring stand-up comedian and au pair struggling with PTSD, as she decides whether or not to join the search for Brooke (Olga Petsa), a missing teenage girl she used to nanny. The story exists between the present, where Sam tries to recover from her trauma and get back on stage, and the past, where memories of Brooke make it harder and harder to ignore the troubled teen’s sudden disappearance. I Used to be Funny is written and directed by American indie filmmaker Ally Pankiw, making her feature directorial debut after many other short films and music videos previously. Produced by Jason Aita, Breann Smordin, and James Weyman. This initially premiered at the 2023 SXSW Film Festival last year. Utopia will debut Pankiw's I Used to be Funny in select US theaters on June 7th, 2024, then on VOD starting June 18th this summer. Intrigued?

To paraphrase dear Hannah Horvath from “Girls,” Rachel Sennott may not be the voice of her generation, but she certainly is a voice of a generation.

And oh, what a voice. Smart, vulnerable, slightly neurotic, frequently ironic, always compelling. It’s a delicious style of comedy honed on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, where the 27-year-old Sennott first developed a following with her wry observations on dating and personal finance. Then crystalized in starring roles in “Shiva Baby” (a masterclass in awkward humor) and the horror film “Bodies Bodies Bodies” (surprisingly amusing despite the gore). But with the one-two punch of “Bottoms” and “I Used to Be Funny,” both of which premiered at this year’s SXSW, Sennott has further demonstrated how rich and malleable her comic persona can be.

“I’m guided by my gut,” Sennott says of her process for choosing projects. “When I’m reading something and I’m saying the words out loud to myself, that’s the sign I’m excited. I’m already thinking about how I’m going to say a line or thinking ‘Oh, I can wear, like, a weird shoe if I play this role.”‘

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In “Bottoms,” Sennott goes back to high school for a queer take on the classic sex comedy. She co-stars with “The Bear” breakout Ayo Edebiri as lesbian best friends who launch an all-female fight club. Sennott, who co-wrote the screenplay with her “Shiva Baby” collaborator Emma Seligman, said it was a chance to put a female spin on raunchy movies like “American Pie” and “Superbad.”

“It changes the way the characters fulfill their goal,” Sennott says of having women take the helm. “The characters in the movie use feminism to their advantage. But we didn’t just want to copy another movie that’s already great and just put girls in it. We wanted to update it and make it personal to ourselves.”

That meant encouraging improvisation on set, and tapping back into the intense feelings of adolescence that make high school such a minefield.

“When you’re in high school and you’re living in that world, it’s just kind of a microcosm,” says Sennott. “I remember how heightened everything was. It was just, like, ‘this is all that matters.’ Everything that’s important is the 3,000 people who live in this town. That’s it, and no one else exists. That’s how high the stakes feel.”

“Bottoms” is campy fun. In contrast, “I Used to Be Funny” is a much darker story, one that uses humor as shield against inner turmoil. Here, Sennott is Sam, an aspiring stand-up comedian struggling with PTSD from a sexual assault she experienced. When the teenager she used to nanny disappears, Sam struggles to decide whether or not to get involved in the search. It’s a tightrope of a performance, perhaps the most nuanced that Sennott has ever given, and one on which this character study rises and falls.

“I personally connected to the material,” says Sennott. “Most women have had some sort of negative sexual experience. I’ve known so many women and friends who have experienced stuff like this.”

And Sennott appreciated how “I Used to be Funny’s” writer and director Ally Pankiw told Sam’s story.

“She wrote about trauma in a very real way that we don’t always get to see in movies,” she says. “It can be very slow burning and long lasting. It’s a thing that has ups and downs.”

In the movie, Sam’s jokes have an edge to them, but they are still very funny. But it’s a humor that emerges out of a deep sense of pain. Sennott says that tracks, too.

“I felt like I was always at my best in standup when I was really depressed,” she says. “Even if I said them later on when I was feeling better, I’d think something’s missing. What was so exciting about getting to play Sam was digging into that place where you have to use humor and laugh at something because you’re in such pain. It eases the harshness to joke about it. It’s like, ‘I went through hell, but now I have two really fucked up jokes that I love telling.’ So there’s a silver lining to this whole miserable experience.”

Is anyone’s star rising faster right now than Rachel Sennott‘s? Thanks to the success of “Shiva Baby” and “Bottoms,” the comedic actress is attached to several buzzy projects, including “SNL 1975” and Mimi Cave‘s sophomore feature “Holland, Michigan.” But before those, Sennott stars in what could be a star-making vehicle for her, or at least a movie that showcases her singular range and versatility.

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And that film would be Ally Pankiw‘s “I Used To Be Funny.” Known for her TV directing for shows like “The Great” and “Black Mirror,” Pankiw’s feature directorial debut allows Sennott to flex her comedic and dramatic muscles in a way only the actress can. Sennott stars in the film as Sam, an aspiring stand-up comic struggling with PTSD after a sexual assault whose life gets turned even further upside down when a teen she used to nanny disappears. Toggling between past and present, “I Used To Be Funny” sees Sam wrestle with her demons as she tries to both reclaim her comedic voice and join the search for a girl she used to know.

Along with Sennott, “I Used To Be Funny” also stars Olga Pesta, Jason Jones, Sabrina Jalees, Caleb Hearon, Ennis Esmer, and Dani Kind. Pankiw writes and directs the film, with Jason Aita, Breann Smordin, and James Weyman producing.

“I Used To Be Funny” premiered at SXSW last year to rave reviews, and it also screened at the Inside Out Film And Video Festival and the Woodstock Film Festival. The Playlist’s review of the film out of SXSW praised Sennott’s role, stating, “it’s a wonderful performance, so good that it pulls the picture around it through its rougher patches.” Read our full review of “I Used To Be Funny” here.

So will “I Used To Be Funny” be another role that puts Rachel Sennott even further in the limelight? Or will Pankiw’s feature debut be more like Sam Levinson‘s “The Idol,” a project involving Sennott that the actress would rather forget. Find out when “I Used To Be Funny” hits theaters in NYC on June 7, LA on June 14, and on Digital on June 18. Watch the trailer for the film below.