Recensioni de* critic*

“Inside” is about feeling wayward and alone, but it’s also a record of a pandemic year spent putting extreme, electrifying effort into making something.

Theater that stubbornly walks a line between irony and sincerity, between intimacy and distance, is a complicated form. Sometimes, the very push-pull of "Am I kidding or not?" is expected to be so satisfying and complicating that the content itself forgets to make a point. Undercutting yourself with knowing self-deprecation, as Burnham often does, is wearying — even exhausting — unless the work that you're doing is precisely on point and the thinking behind it has stark clarity.

Inside is…a lot. It's a staggering feat of multimedia art that speaks to Bo Burnham's rare creativity. It's also a hopeless and upsetting projection of depression that gets a little too close to the feels if one is inclined to feel them. It's brilliant, the songs are mostly bangers, and it's laugh-out-loud hilarious. It's physically painful to watch. That oscillation is the point of Inside and of Burnham's work as a whole.

“Inside” concerns Burnham coming back to stand-up after five years but also coming full circle with this talent that gave him a preternatural idea of what is funny, no audience needed. As it ebbs between darkness and comic relief, “Inside” speaks most to a personal process that is universal, and the solace that will always be there with creativity.

It’s a feat, the work of a gifted experimentalist whose craft has caught up to his talent. And while it’s an ominous portrait of the isolation of the pandemic, there’s hope in its existence: Written, designed and shot by Burnham over the last year inside a single room, it illustrates that there’s no greater inspiration than limitations.

If Inside has an overall “point” it’s that the search for the ultimate, most truthful self is impossible. Authenticity isn’t so much the enemy of Inside as its unreachable destination.

Naysayers may complain that, with silences in laughter’s place, bleak jokes, and sections that eschew humour entirely, Inside has little comical about it. But if the material isn’t chucklesome, you’ll laugh with sheer astonishment at the accomplishment of Burnham’s enterprise. This prodigiously talented act has performed an extraordinary feat of construction and production, its restless audio-visual invention drastically expanding lockdown’s dramatic, comic and emotional range.

It’s a strange position to work from, but despite Burnham’s relentless undercutting of his own work, Inside is not entirely an exercise in self-pity or narcissism. Instead, Burnham’s habit of judging himself by the same harsh standards he applies to the rest of the world gives him room to go bigger than he otherwise might.

“Bo Burnham: Inside” sometimes adopts the listless quality of the quarantine routine at its center. However, whether or not you embrace the weird tonal shifts and abrupt transitions between vignettes, the experience is a constant audiovisual thrill. From shifting aspect ratios to split screens, gorgeous experiments with light and shadows and an array of musical effects, Burnham has built an intricate tapestry of cinematic devices to deepen the psychological intrigue in play.

It is an incredible accomplishment, a testament to Burnham’s genius at directing, writing, songwriting, performance. There are a few overwhelming moments of empathy and warmth, too.