Comic Sans

Comic Sans; drama, Croatia, 2018; D: Nevio Marasović, S: Janko Popović Volarić, Zlatko Burić, Inti Šraj, Nataša Janjić, Miloš Timotijević, Alma Prica

Zagreb. Graphic designer Alan is so devastated when his girlfriend Marina breaks up with him that he starts taking cocaine after a business meeting in Ljubljana. He also decides to accompany his father Bruno on his car trip to the island of Vis, to attend the funeral of Alan's aunt Matija. On Vis, Alan meets his ex-girlfriend Barbara, who is now engaged, as well as tourists Anne and Sofie. A drugged Alan wakes up in a yacht, after he missed Marina's phone call, and is left together with Bruno alone on the Jabuka island. They are picked up and return back to Vis, where they attend the funeral, but wonder at the use of the defunct "comic sans" font for the tombstone.

Compared to his impressive directorial debut film "The Show Must Go On", but also compared to any other film genre, "Comic Sans" is an underwhelming, meandering drama which does not know what it wants to say, what its vision is, nor how to construct all of this in a better, harmonious way. The story is vague and episodic, setting up certain plot points which are in the end never resolved on concluded, leaving a rather incomplete feeling. It starts out with the protagonist's Alan's break-up with his girlfriend Marina, and then switches to his relationship with his father and their trip to the island of Vis, but this whole opening 30-minute act could have been cut without influencing the rest of the movie. Alan's relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Barbara, is also brought up, without being resolved in the end. Too much of all of this is arbitrary and overstretched. Yet, one humorous sequence is outstanding: figuring nothing really matters after Marina dumped him, Alan takes cocaine and then parties all night long with Anna, Sofie, and others. Cut to the next day when he wakes up in bed with Sofie, doesn't remember anything, but then looks at his mobile phone and spots he has a missed call from Marina, as Sofie says: "Your mobile phone rang, so I picked up the call. A woman called you, so I told her you were asleep". An angry Alan stands up from the bed, but then realizes he is on a yacht, in the middle of the Adriatic Sea, as the passangers tell him it was his idea to visit the remote Jabuka island. There is no signal, so he lifts his mobile phone up in the air to try to find it, but Anna shows up behind his back and taps him, causing his mobile phone to fall into the sea. A rare successful and comical moment from an otherwise poorly thought-out film.

Grade:+