Between Two Ferns: The Movie
Anyone who has been an active YouTube user for more than 5 or 6 years has probably come across clips of a bristly Zach Galifianakis asking celebrities spiteful, even invasive questions about themselves, effectively roasting them and himself in the process. You may not have realized you were watching Between Two Ferns, a web series started by Will Ferrell's YouTube channel Funny or Die, but if you have a soul, you were inevitably entertained by Galifianakis' snobby idiot character and his distaste for the stars he interrogated.
The series has spawned only 22 brief episodes (and one special) since the first one was uploaded in 2008, serving as a sort-of occasional, surprise "treat" from Funny Or Die to the citizens of the Internet. If this is your first time hearing about the series, it makes sense; the show's sparse release schedule means that it lacks the rabid, vocal fan base that many other popular YouTube channels create. That being said, the videos average somewhere in the 10-15 million view range, with the Barack Obama interview reaching over 27 million. Needless to say, the series has earned its place in internet entertainment.
That's why it's not entirely surprising that Galifianakis, along with his longtime writer-director Scott Aukerman (also of Comedy Bang! Bang! fame), managed to make a feature film out of it. What is surprising, though, is that it happened now, in 2019. The show was at its peak frequency in the first half of the decade, only releasing maybe one or two episodes per year since 2015, if that.
Why they chose to make it now is beyond me, but now that I've seen it, I'm kind of glad they waited. Between Two Ferns: The Movie almost feels like a love letter to the ballsy, convention-breaking series of the early 2010s—a reminder that it existed, and that it was awesome, while also being a refresher course on the unique brand of lovable-but-unlikable goofiness Galifianakis is capable of, which some audiences may have forgotten since his breakout role as Alan in 2009's The Hangover.
The original web series has effectively no continuity; it's just Galifianakis, in character as an arrogant and abrasive "journalist" who has seemingly been forced to talk to celebrities he doesn't like. The Movie goes meta, taking the angle of a mockumentary and giving us a peek behind the scenes at how the show is supposedly made.
The story goes that "Between Two Ferns" was a program on public-access TV in a small North Carolina town, which Zach created as a means of selfishly boosting his own television career to new heights. The program was found and purchased by greedy, crack-addled studio executive Will Ferrell and turned into an Internet comedy series in order to get his website "more clicks." When Zach ruins the studio set and nearly kills Matthew McConaughey by way of plumbing accident, Ferrell insists that Galifianakis owes him ten new episodes in two weeks, or it's all over (especially amusing in the context of the real-life show's sporadic schedule). In return, Ferrell promises to put Zach on a lifetime network talk show. Or was it a network talk show on Lifetime? Zach doesn't care either way.
Without a studio, Zach takes his ferns and his three crew members on the road to find ten more celebrities who will talk to him, and we are treated to innumerable celebrity appearances, of varying lengths and consequence to the plot of the film. Personally, my favorites may have been sleepy, "too-rich-to-care" Peter Dinklage, and essentially every male actor revealing themselves to be douche-y horndogs to the female members of the crew.
The film follows the classic on-the-road "ultimatum" plot line to a T, but at a tight 82 minutes, the plot doesn't matter. Between Two Ferns: The Movie is a vehicle for Galifianakis and Aukerman to take this beast they've created and spin it on as high a cycle as it will go. Sometimes that means jumping the shark a little bit, so if you're a fan of the web series' relatively low-key tone, the movie might lose you in some places. Zach regularly reaches Michael Scott-levels of ridiculously selfish and unaware behavior, but Galifianakis' talent for honest delivery and reaction absolutely sell it.
And that's really why this movie works: Galifianakis (and Aukerman) knows what he's good at and leans into it. The movie doesn't really have to make sense if the film keeps throwing recognizable personalities at his character for him to bounce off of. The weakest moments are those exclusively featuring Zach and his fictional crewmates, where the effectiveness of the scene is entirely reliant on Aukerman's hammy, skit-oriented approach to comedy. It's not a major complaint, though, as those scenes are just brief and just stupid enough to maintain the film's momentum. Aukerman and crew know why we're all here: to see Galifianakis treat celebrities like crap. And that's most of what the film is.
Between Two Ferns: The Movie is pretty much everything you could expect from a feature film based on the series: way more celebrities and slightly more plot. It's simple, straightforward, and self-aware. It doesn't earn many points toward the best movie I've seen this year (nor does it aim to), but it makes a very solid case for the funniest. And those relentless laughs alone are enough to make this one well-worth it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjljgkCQv5c&w=585