5 Comedies With Surprisingly Powerful Life Lessons

5 Must Watch Comedies With Surprisingly Powerful Messages

Looking for a comedy that makes you laugh and then leaves you thinking? Five films stand out for hiding a serious idea inside a mainstream, studio-marketed comedy: Don Jon (2013) on how fantasy distorts real intimacy, Mr. Destiny (1990) on regret and the life you did not choose, Yes Man (2008) on fear and comfort zones, Click (2006) on living on autopilot, and Shallow Hal (2001) on judging people by appearance.

None of them is a highbrow drama with a few jokes added. They were sold as straightforward comedies, which is exactly why their messages catch people off guard. Films that are openly built around a heartfelt story, such as Forrest Gump or Patch Adams, are left out for that reason. A gentle warning before you read on: each section describes the film's central idea, and in a couple of cases its ending.

1. Don Jon (2013): what fantasy does to real connection

Don Jon was Joseph Gordon-Levitt's first feature as writer and director, and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2013. He plays Jon Martello, a New Jersey bartender whose life runs on a short list of priorities: his body, his apartment, his family, his church, his friends and his conquests. Jon also has a habit he cannot stop, compulsive viewing of online pornography.

The comedy comes from Jon's swagger and his loud Italian-American family. The insight comes from how the film pairs him with two very different women. Barbara, played by Scarlett Johansson, has her own script for love, drawn from glossy romantic films. Esther, an older classmate played by Julianne Moore, is the one who gently shows Jon that both fantasies, his and Barbara's, get in the way of actually knowing another person.

The takeaway is less about one specific habit than about expectations. Whatever we consume repeatedly, whether explicit material, romantic fantasy or curated social media, can quietly set standards that real people cannot meet. Critics were largely positive, praising Johansson and Moore in particular. Note that the film is aimed at adults and is rated R in the US for its sexual content.

2. Mr. Destiny (1990): the grass on the other side

In James Orr's Mr. Destiny, James Belushi plays Larry Burrows, a man who reaches his 35th birthday convinced that his ordinary life went wrong at one moment: striking out in a high school championship baseball game. A mysterious bartender called Mike, played by Michael Caine, offers him the chance to see how things would have gone if he had hit the ball.

Larry wakes up rich, powerful and married to the town's former beauty queen. Before long, though, he discovers that his best friend's life has fallen apart, that the woman he loves barely tolerates him, and that his new success has made him enemies. The alternative life he dreamed of turns out to cost him the people who made the old one worth living.

Critics were not kind; Roger Ebert called it "a slow march through foregone conclusions." Yet the idea at its centre has kept the film on lists like this one. It is a light-hearted lesson in how regret works: we compare our real, complicated lives with an imagined version that has all the benefits and none of the costs. The film invites viewers to value what they actually have.

3. Yes Man (2008): stepping outside your comfort zone

Jim Carrey plays Carl Allen, a divorced bank loan officer who has fallen into the habit of saying no to everything: invitations, friends, new experiences. After a motivational seminar led by a guru played by Terence Stamp, he agrees to a "covenant" to say yes to every opportunity. Zooey Deschanel co-stars as Allison, the free-spirited woman he meets along the way.

Directed by Peyton Reed, the film is loosely based on a real experiment. British writer Danny Wallace spent a period saying yes to everything and wrote about it in his 2005 memoir Yes Man; he even has a cameo in the film. The movie exaggerates the premise for laughs, and Carl lands in absurd trouble, but it ends with a sensible point: the aim was never to agree to everything forever, but to break the reflex of refusing out of fear.

The lesson is a practical one. Small, deliberate yeses, such as a class, a trip or a conversation with a stranger, can widen a life that has narrowed without our noticing. Carrey has spoken publicly about his interest in spiritual teachers, including Eckhart Tolle, and some viewers see echoes of that in the film's message about being present, though the story itself comes from Wallace's book.

4. Click (2006): the cost of fast-forwarding

Adam Sandler plays Michael Newman, an overworked architect desperate for promotion, who is handed a magical universal remote by an eccentric store worker called Morty, played by Christopher Walken. The remote lets him pause, rewind and, above all, fast-forward through the dull bits: traffic, arguments, illness, even years of his life.

The catch is that while Michael skips ahead, his body carries on living on autopilot. The remote begins learning his preferences and skipping automatically, and he watches his marriage, his children's childhoods and time with his father slip by without him. By the later scenes, the film has turned surprisingly dark.

Many critics disliked its crude jokes, but Newsweek described it as "unusually dark, occasionally touching and pretty funny" for a Sandler comedy, and the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Makeup. Its message lands with anyone who has wished a week away: the ordinary, unglamorous moments are most of life, and they do not come back. It echoes the regrets often reported by people at the end of their lives, such as having worked too hard and spent too little time with the people they love.

5. Shallow Hal (2001): seeing past appearances

The Farrelly brothers' Shallow Hal stars Jack Black as Hal Larson, a man who judges women entirely on looks. After he is stuck in a lift with the motivational speaker Tony Robbins, playing himself, Hal is hypnotised into seeing people's inner beauty instead of their outward appearance. He falls for Rosemary, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, a kind and generous woman whom others see very differently.

When his friend breaks the spell, Hal has to decide whether he loved Rosemary or only the image he saw. The film's heart is in that choice, and in a moving hospital scene that changes how Hal sees people. The message about kindness, character and the shallowness of beauty standards is clear and sincere.

It is worth watching with open eyes, though. Critics, and some members of the plus-size community, pointed out that much of the humour relies on fat jokes and a fat suit, which sits awkwardly with the film's stated lesson. Paltrow later said she did not enjoy making it. That tension makes it a good film to discuss rather than simply enjoy.

What these comedies have in common

Each of the five uses the same trick. It starts with a familiar comic figure, the player, the loser, the slacker, the workaholic or the shallow guy, and gives him a strange device or circumstance that exaggerates his flaw. The laughs keep the audience relaxed; the consequences slowly reveal the real subject.

Don Jon: what we repeatedly consume shapes what we expect from others.
Mr. Destiny: regret compares real life with a fantasy that has no costs.
Yes Man: habitual refusal can be fear in disguise.
Click: skipping the boring parts means skipping most of life.
Shallow Hal: character outlasts appearance, even if the film itself is not always consistent about it.

If you enjoyed these, other comedies built on a similar idea include Groundhog Day (1993), in which a cynical weatherman relives one day until he learns to change, and Liar Liar (1997), another Jim Carrey film about honesty. Share your own favourites in the comments.

Sources: Based on an original list published by Collective Evolution (December 2014). Film details: Wikipedia: Don Jon; Wikipedia: Mr. Destiny; Wikipedia: Yes Man (film); Wikipedia: Click (2006 film); Wikipedia: Shallow Hal.

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