Thank You 5 (2020 / 2024)

Don’t Judge a Show By Its Playbill

“It was nice meeting you. Sorry you hate everyone.” —Scott (with two T’s)

I used to be one of those obnoxious people who said, “Movie theaters are my church”. I would arrive early to get the best seat, maintain utter focus from lights down to lights up, and glare righteously at anyone who dared talk above a whisper after the previews and Coke commercials.*

I don’t apply this same reverence to watching shows at home, much to my wife’s chagrin. When it’s just us, I’ll interject and crack wise at the drop of a hat. In fairness, we watch a lot of sitcoms and reality TV, so there’s little danger in not keeping up with the Kardashians, scene to scene. The first time we watched Abbott Elementary together, my wife turned it off halfway through—not because it was awful, but because I was being awful. At first glance, the Emmy Award-winning show looked to be nothing more than an Office rip-off, set in an urban grade school: from the faux-documentary style, to the character archetypes, and the specific ways the actors would mug their way into bulldozing the fourth wall, I wouldn’t shut up about the surreality of this copy/paste nonsense.

Sometime later, I gave Abbott Elementary another chance—a bona fide, keep-your-comments-to-yourself chance. In doing so, I discovered an entirely “new” show. After getting past the heavily cribbed aesthetic, I realized that creator/star Quinta Brunson had used a popular formula as a vehicle to tell very funny stories that spoke to her.

I was reminded of all this in the middle of watching Thank You 5. Co-writers/directors/stars (and first-time feature filmmakers) Michael Barnard and Reid Estreicher employ a similar approach to their comedy about egotistical Chicago actors putting on a terrible play. The movie doesn’t use the confessional-style interviews so common in faux-doc entertainment, but everything else is there: conspicuous, you-are-in-the-audience/bar/stage-huddle framing; sharply edited comic cutaways and heartbreaking pans away from the main action; and the third-act “denouemontage”—a rapid-succession look at how each of the main characters/groups ends their very long opening night (set to sweeping, sentimental music).

From the outset, we know that the play-within-the-movie is in trouble. Writer/director, Kurt (Estreicher) sits in an empty theater with his production manager, Heidi (Phylicia McLeod), to discuss Prelude to a Tradition, a funeral drama set in a 1940s cafe. Kurt has an inflated sense of his own talent and industry knowledge, but neither the credits nor the self-awareness to back it up. He’s like Waiting for Guffman’s Corky St. Clair, as filtered through Will Arnett. For her part, Heidi can only nod agreeably in wide-eyed (likely panicked) amazement.

We next meet the cast, an oddball assemblage of local pros, part-timers, and rookies whose chemistry ranges from chocolate and peanut butter to oil and water. Among them are friends Bobby and Peter (Timmy Carroll and Richard Kallus), eager-for-a-break workhorse Alex (Meghan Murphy), Juilliard-trained snob Matthew (Jason Amplo), and struggling power couple Scot (John T. O’Brien) and Heather (Emily Zawisza). There’s also girl-next-door Jenna (Stevie Shale), who’s newer to the biz than anyone suspects.

The bulk of Thank You 5 is a Murphy’s Law gamut of community theater mishaps in which the cast and crew don’t gel, no one respects the director or the material, and everything from props to makeup to the play’s setting is at some point up for grabs. At just under two hours, there are warning signs that the multiple storylines run the risk of straying into Apatow territory; luckily the film’s cast and Barnard’s/Estreicher’s twists and laugh-out-loud insights make these situations impossible to turn away from.

They also know how to punctuate their levity with dramatic commentary at just the right moments. With very little time left before opening night, a fed-up Kurt gathers everyone to the auditorium and addresses them from the stage. He calls out the bickering, rehearsal-halting jokiness, lack of preparation, and all-around lack of professionalism that has brought the production to its knees. He, of course, must take a great deal of the blame, but in this searing monologue, we discover a different side of Kurt—one that compels some in the cast to step up their game.

This moment is an island of seriousness in an ocean of the absurd, but it also foreshadows a note-perfect third act that switches gears so smoothly as to make one forget the tone of the first hour and thirty minutes. Following the premiere of Prelude to a Tradition, the cast splits up to head home or to nearby bars. With the pressure of opening night behind them, they (and we) leave the Bizarro World black box of Chi-Town’s Theater Wit and decompress in a series of intercut scenes involving flesh-and-blood people having real conversations. With egos freshly deflated and no one to perform for, we’re taken into the minds and hearts of these actors (as well as, I’d like to imagine, those of the actors playing the actors).

One might accuse Barnard and Estreicher of soapboxing through their characters here, but there are times and there are movies when such things are called for. The filmmakers resolve shaky character dynamics in ways alternately conventional and surprising, and, in the most striking part of the film, underscore their thesis with a Silent Bob-style monologue from George (Barnard). Up to this point, he’s been the cast punching bag whom no one listens to or takes seriously. After hours, and after a couple of beers, he opens up about the struggle between the love of acting and the pursuit of fame. It’s a genuinely beautiful piece of writing that ties together the rest of the standard-issue montage surrounding the scene.

I spoke with Barnard and Estreicher about Thank You 5, as part of a filmmaker round table. Recently, they’d been pitched the idea of creating a black-and-white version of Thank You 5—which has played festivals and been available on demand in color for years. They feared that the new movie would be unfairly compared to Clerks, Kevin Smith’s B&W micro-budget workplace comedy that launched a thousand imitators. And while it’s easy to make such instant, swipe-left judgments in this age of content-overload madness (see the opening paragraphs above), I’m happy to report that the filmmakers’ worries are unfounded: the new version is dazzling. Whether you love live theater or didn’t know it still existed outside of Broadway, Thank You 5 will make you laugh, think, and demand to know what’s next for its supremely talented cast and crew.

The black-and-white version of Thank You 5 will have its world premiere this Saturday, July 13th at Film Noir Cinema in Brooklyn, NY—and will feature a post-screening Q&A with co-writer/directors/stars Barnard and Estreicher. Get tickets here.

*I still do these things. I also recognize that movie theaters are movie theaters and church is church.