The Comedy

The Comedy is a 2012 American metamodern film directed and co-written by Rick Alverson, and starring Tim Heidecker. Supporting actors include Eric Wareheim (Tim and Eric), James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem), and Gregg Turkington (better known as Neil Hamburger). The film premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival[1] and screened within such festivals as Maryland Film Festival 2012. The film was distributed by Tribeca Film and theatrically released on November 9, 2012. It went nationwide on demand starting October 24, 2012.[2]

Despite the title and use of comedians as actors, Sundance festival chief programmer Trevor Groth says that the film is not a comedy, but instead "a provocation, a critique of a culture based at its core around irony and sarcasm and about ultimately how hollow that is."[3]

The film was deliberately leaked onto various torrent websites, though the file only shows the first ten minutes before abruptly cutting to Heidecker sitting silently on a boat behind a scrolling anti-piracy statement.