Ronald Bronstein’s Frownland tells the dark tale of Keith, an isolated and troubled twenty-something who seems incapable of communicating with the people around him. The film is[SG1]  relentlessly grim, yet it borrows the rhythms of comedy to tell Keith’s story, rendering his tragedy all the more unsettling. 

In one scene, the audience helplessly watches Keith confront his only “friend,” Sandy, in his apartment. Perhaps “friend” is a poor choice of words; Sandy seems to want nothing to do with Keith. Their only on-screen interactions throughout the film have involved Sandy’s desperate attempts to rid himself of Keith without direct confrontation; Keith either ignores or fails to understand Sandy’s pleas. Their dynamic explodes in this scene, which comes late in the film: Sandy has denied a frantic Keith entry to his apartment, eventually conceding to meet Keith outside of a local store. An elliptical edit shows Keith go from standing alone outside the store to storming through Sandy’s hallway; Sandy never showed. After several knocks, Sandy finds Keith at his door, speaking rapidly and moving erratically, attempting to recite a seemingly pre-planned speech about his childhood. Keith repeatedly struggles to recite his opening line as Sandy interrupts with pleas to lower his voice. 

At this point in the film, very little backstory has been given about Keith’s character. All the viewer knows about Keith, for the most part, is his immediate suffering. The tragicomic nature of Keith’s existence is best described by critic Richard Brody: “If a schlemiel is the person who spills a bowl of soup and a schlimazel is the person it’s spilled on, what to make of Keith, who spills the soup on himself and can’t help making others want to pour it on him intentionally?” (Brody). The most we get is in a brief scene in a therapist’s office, the only scene where Keith speaks calmly. Bronstein says of this scene: “The analyst is the only person in the movie predisposed to let him speak. If the other characters weren’t so driven to shoo him away, he’d sound like this in every scene.” (Bronstein). In said scene, Keith speaks of the abusive relationship between his mother and father. He attempts to communicate this trauma to Sandy but to no avail. For one reason or another, Keith cannot communicate with the only person he calls a “friend.”

The scene, for all its tragedy, plays with the rhythms of a comedy: the repetition, the elliptical cuts that bookend the scene, the extreme contrast of Keith and Sandy __all techniques that evoke a comedic response. It can be hard not to laugh at Keith’s persistence and focus: a moment where Sandy tells Keith that he can speak if he keeps his hand on a railing, which leads Keith to let his guard down, resulting in his immediate removal of his hand from said railing, is particularly comical, and Keith’s rabid-dog, bursting at the seams energy, is on the verge of dark physical comedy. The rapid escalation of the scene also evokes a shocked laughter, with Keith barely finishing a half-hearted request for a glass of water before screaming in preemptive defense. The scene plays with these comic beats, but no joy is felt in the laughter of the viewer. It is not comedy born out of relatability or superiority; it is pure tragedy with comic timing. This tragedy is displayed best in the scene’s last line: as Sandy subdues Keith against the wall, Keith struggles to let out the three words that sum up his relationship with Sandy: “You’re hurting me!”

Works Cited

Brody, Richard. “Frownland: Down the Drain.” Criterion, 18 August 2022, https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7899-frownland-down-the-drain. Accessed 12 July 2024.

Bronstein, Ronald. “FROWNLAND Deleted Scene: Analysis Take 3.” Criterion Channel, 2022, https://www.criterionchannel.com/frownland-a-film-by-ronand-bronstein/vi.... Accessed 12 July 2024.