The Death of Dick Long
The Death of Dick Long is a strange, inventive, capital “B” Bonkers comedy-drama directed by Daniel Scheinert (of Daniels, the duo behind Everything Everywhere All At Once). Its “What happened last night?” premise goes to equally hilarious and horrifying places, wringing every last bit of shock and awe out of a limited budget, and successfully centering its story around a single punchline.
The Death of Dick Long’s first hour balances sincere emotion and tension with playful jokes and the usual trappings of a family drama. Then, at the two-thirds mark, the film’s central reveal occurs, and its tonal fabric is torn in two. There will be no spoilers in this review — other than the reveal that there’s something worth revealing — but if you’re a fan of black comedy or off-kilter indie filmmaking, do yourself a favor and give this a watch.
When the punchline arrives, and the question that’s been on every character’s mind receives a truly outrageous answer, the film becomes fundamentally impossible to take seriously. But that’s when The Death of Dick Long kicks into high gear and does something genius: instead of leaning fully into absurdity, it continues like a drama. The presentation suggests sincerity, but the plot suggests insanity, and as your brain tries (and fails) to reconcile the two, the cognitive dissonance that powers the film’s third act begins. From here on, you experience The Death of Dick Long in a superimposed state, pitting your unconscious and intuitive (System 1) thinking against your conscious and deliberate (System 2) thinking.
Here’s the loop:
Your System 1 is drawn into the well-crafted family drama on screen, and you begin to take it seriously
Your System 2 becomes aware that you’re getting genuinely invested
Your System 2 tries to resolve the tension between how you intuitively feel about what you’re watching with what you know about what you’re watching
Your System 2 fails miserably and decides to just enjoy the ride
Rinse and repeat about every five seconds for the last forty minutes of the film!
Achieving an effect like this necessitates that everyone on cast and crew become tonal funambulists, walking the tightrope hand-in-hand, performing a few backflips along the way, and miraculously never falling to their collective death. It’s an inspiring feat that gives The Death of Dick Long much of its charm.
When you started reading this article, you probably expected some explanation of, or at least reference to, the fact that the guy’s name is Dick Long. When I started watching the film, I expected much the same, but the script plays his name completely straight. So why include it? The answer lies in how The Death of Dick Long’s title, and its titular character’s absurd name, reflects its structure, and that enjoyable-but-maddening dissonance at its core.
“The Death of…” sounds grave and important, but when followed by “…Dick Long,” that sense of importance is obliterated by the unignorable fact that the guy’s name is DICK LONG. “The Death of…” represents the first hour of the film: a fairly straightforward drama that, while it has funny moments, treats its characters like real people. “…Dick Long” is everything post-reveal, where you can’t quite tell if you should be taking anything seriously. When most films walk the tightrope of sincerity and face the question “Should I take this seriously?” they provide the perfectly reasonable response “sometimes” or “maybe.” But The Death of Dick Long is not a reasonable film, so it answers “absolutely” into one ear, “absolutely not” into the other, and leaves your brain to fight the two out. It’s when your friend makes a joke you know you shouldn’t be laughing at, but the more they deny that they’re joking and ask why you’re laughing, the funnier it becomes.