‘Cunk on Life’ REVIEW: I can’t believe I spent 71 minutes watching this
‘Cunk on Life’ REVIEW: I can’t believe I spent 71 minutes watching this
Diane Morgan in My Cunk on Life | Taken from IMDb
Al Campbell’s Cunk on Life is a mockumentary film based on the Cunk on Earth mockumentary television series, both following Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) as she explores how society reached its current state of development. For the film specifically, she conducts interviews with experts in various fields related to science, religion, and historical art. She generally has balanced points of discussion, which are interesting, but still simple concepts to understand such as theories on creation, religious doctrines, and classic pieces of art.
I’d say watching the series isn’t necessary to appreciate the film in its full capacity. They exist separately, so my concerns about the film are based on how the film stands alone. This also means that people shouldn’t be discouraged from watching the film just because they haven’t watched or finished the series.
In terms of why this is worth spending time watching, I’m unsure what to say. Maybe those who are into deadpan humor have a reason to watch this, but for the rest of us, I’m not quite sure. The 1 hour and 11 minutes it takes also becomes dragging as the film progresses — wherein the intentional monotone narration of the film starts as funny but eventually makes time feel much longer. I can also imagine how the spoon could be too full even for those who enjoy watching the series considering it’s just around 30 minutes per episode as opposed to this which is double that time.
A significant part of the mockumentary is the interview questions raised by Cunk. Here, her consistent monotonousness actually becomes such a strong tool in executing her deadpan humor. It emphasizes the emotion of the interviewees as well, legitimate professionals from credible institutions, as it becomes very evident in their faces how this interviewer is wasting their valued time. This is probably the best part about the film, making up for the dragging narrations.
But again, some questions also feel somewhat forced and unfunny, so this really could’ve been shortened to less than an hour.
There were some parts of the film that made me chuckle though, mostly the ones that successfully caught me off guard midway. Nudity and intimacy were used sparingly despite all the sex jokes in the film, but even these scenes didn’t stop Cunk from walking into the frame and delivering a monotone spiel as if nothing was going on right beside her.
Now onto the ultimate question: Is it funny?
It’s nothing special for people who aren’t seeking deadpan humor on a regular basis. I also generally disagree with making jokes on sex education in particular, considering how one of the main reasons this isn’t normalized in curricula is because it isn’t seen as a serious and crucial topic. I also expect some people to have their own disagreements about how this film jokes about religion, but I guess it’s just the nature of this humor and mockumentaries in general.
At some point, it goes on for so long that it gets boring. Since I streamed it on Netflix, there were instances where I found myself checking how much longer I had to endure because the entertainment it gave in the opening narration gradually faded away as the mockumentary progressed. Perhaps it’s better in shorter episode formats.
‘Cunk on Life’ is now showing on Netflix.
