Review: All Joking Aside

Shannon Kohli’s All Joking Aside lacks nuance but delivers on heart. Both an articulate guide for the many challenges being a stand up comic (especially being a comic who is also a woman of colour), and a formulaic crusty mentor-green protégé film, it is a worthwhile watch for an audience that can appreciate what it is trying to do.

In other words, there’s a new talent on the (metaphorical) stage, so don’t heckle her.

Raylene Harewood (from Winnipeg) plays Charlene, a young woman with a few things going on. She is estranged from her mother; her father, a comic, has passed; she has been told by a male supervisor at work to smile more; she is not sure if she wants to work at a school; and she may or may not have a resurgence of her skin cancer. There is no reason why someone cannot have all these things happening to them, but the film’s presentation of these attributes can seem like a perfunctory list of maladies that just happen to coincide on one unfortunate soul. This by no means is a strike against Harewood, for she brightens the screen with her determination to overcome the obstacles in her path – I just wish that the writing seemed less “luck of the draw” and more earned characterization.

Charlene, partly inspired from her dad (who I wish we could have seen perform via videotape or flashback), wants to pursue stand-up comedy. A heckler, famous has-been comic Bob Carpenter (a grizzled Brian Markinson), makes short work of her at the beginning, but with some true moxie Charlene convinces the sad-sack alcoholic to mentor her and teach her about “opening, closing and structure.” This is another area that lacks subtlety, but at least the film recognizes it – Charlene remarks that Bob could be a lot less “cliché.” (Too bad the film never really gives being anti-cliché a chance.)

So, here we go. Wax on, wax off. White old man teaches young Black woman to go with what truly sets her apart, not do the same-old PMS and diet jokes. He also helps fix up her home after noticing a few things wrong with it. That’s not a spoiler as you’ve seen this kind of story done before. That doesn’t mean it fails, though – finding humanity in two broken people never tires me.

At the end of the film, there is a conflict that seems tacked on. I clocked it: the conflict enters with about 15 minutes left in the running time and does not seem earned, given the struggles overcome by that point. It is also speedily dispatched by a best friend running interference.

Aside from the unnecessary conflict and the cliché trappings, solid performances from Harewood and Markinson make this film worth watching. It is also important to note that we need more stories that engage with diverse perspectives about the often toxic world of stand up comedy.

All Joking Aside was released August 14, 2020 on Superchannel Fuse and Superchannel VOD.
Watch it here.

All Joking Aside Trailer Directed by Shannon Kohli

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