James (Kyle Mooney) inhabits an underground bunker with his parents, Ted and April Mitchum (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams), that he has never been allowed to leave. According to Ted the outside world is toxic, and so James spends his days underground, feeding an obsession with the children's TV show Brigsby Bear. Everything changes when police raid the bunker one night, arrest Ted and April and inform James that he's not actually their son; they kidnapped him as a baby and raised him themselves. But that's not all: James also learns Brigsby Bear isn't actually a real TV program but rather one Ted himself created and produced in a hidden studio in the bunker, from where the cops tracked the Mitchums. They even created fictitious online personas to interact with James on an online forum about the show, with James naturally believing they were real. Now after meeting Detective Vogel (Greg Kinnear), he's finally introduced to his real family, parents Greg and Louise Pope (Matt Walsh and Michaela Watkins) and teenage sister Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins). Despite their efforts to introduce him to his new life and having him see a therapist (Claire Danes), however, James remains unable to think of anything except Brigsby Bear. To this end, he enlists a couple of new friends to help him write and film one last episode.
This film's concept immediately struck me as delightfully strange and charming, but unfortunately the execution proved quite disappointing for me. Director Dave McCary and writers Mooney and Kevin Costello do successfully provoke a few laughs, but for such an offbeat concept McCary's direction I think is really too subtle and conventional, to the point of incongruity. A director like Jay Roach, Terry Gilliam or of course Tim Burton would've brought a more fitting visualisation to it, and I also think near the end it lays the sentiment on slightly too thick. The soundtrack also could've used more psychedelic rock hits, too.
Don't get me wrong, Brigsby Bear is well-intentioned, sincere and uniquely conceived, with a cast who all try their hardest. But to my mind, the finished product is just not half as distinctive, witty or unconventional as it seems to consider itself.
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