Ned Vizzini’s critically acclaimed 2006 novel, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, hits the big screen next month. The Focus Features film is directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who also co-wrote the screenplay, based on Vizzini’s novel (the New York Times Book Review called the book “insightful and utterly authentic,” and the novel received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and School Library Journal). Boden and Fleck have co-written and co-directed several other movies together, including Half Nelson (2006) and Sugar (2008).
Keir Gilchrist (The United States of Tara) stars in the movie as Craig, a Brooklyn teenager who checks himself into a psychiatric hospital, after having difficulty coping with the stresses of his first year at a competitive high school; Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) and Emma Roberts (Hotel for Dogs; Nancy Drew) also star.
The film premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival, which opens today (September 9), and is scheduled for wide release on October 8. Disney-Hyperion published a tie-in edition of the novel on August 31. “The concept of the movie is like a teen version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” producer Kevin Misher told Entertainment Weekly earlier this summer. “But the tone is more similar to The Breakfast Club.”
It’s Kind of a Funny Story (tie-in edition). Disney-Hyperion, $9.99 paper ISBN 978-1-4231-4191-4
