Movie Review
Authors Anonymous is a movie about a dysfunctional writers’ group that has to deal with one of its members gaining overnight success. It stars Kaley Cuoco and Chris Klein and features Teri Polo and Dennis Farina as well. It was released in 2014.
I had actually never heard of this movie until a fellow writer in my publishing house mentioned it. I tried finding it on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime with no luck. (Well, I could have paid to rent it from Amazon Prime, but I’m already paying for all these streaming services…if I have to give them more money, WHAT AM I PAYING FOR??? lol). Then, as if the Universe had been paying attention, I was searching the TV guide last Saturday afternoon (the dead hours when all sports are over and evening shows haven’t begun…you know, the hours I should be being productive instead of watching TV), and on my local channel 13, Authors Anonymous was coming on in 15 minutes! WHAAAAAAAT? It’s not like it was a showing of Harry Potter (which is on every day on some channel, I think.) This is an obscure little movie that showed up just when I needed it!
And I’m glad it did. I LOVED it. Maybe it’s a writer thing, but it made me laugh. I loved the characters. Kaley Cuoco’s character (Hannah), the one who landed a deal, and Chris Klein (Henry), the writer in the group with a secret crush on her, were pretty normal characters. What I loved were all the “characters” around them. Dennis Farina played an older, crotchety man (John K. Butzin) who went the pay-to-publish route. Teri Polo (Colette) played a hilarious entitled author who kept getting rejections. There was even the author who fancied himself Charles Bukowski–you know, the guy who thinks he’s a writer and loves to play the part but doesn’t actually do any writing. Maybe my favorite was Colette’s husband Alan–the one who started the group–who just came up with story ideas and recorded them on a pocket recording device. He never actually wrote anything. He’d just pause in the middle of a conversation and record a story idea or character name ideas.
The plot was okay. It was funny how Hannah’s good fortune seemed to snowball into more and more opportunities. But the characters really made this movie. I think a non-writer would still find it funny, but it’s definitely something you should watch if you’re a writer and need a good laugh (or need to feel better about your own journey!) Authors Anonymous is a funny character sketch that fans of indie movies and offbeat humor would love. It definitely gets a LOVE IT from me!
Authors Anonymous can be rented from Amazon Prime or Red Box (maybe others). I have yet to find it anywhere streaming. Maybe if you’re near the Last Blockbuster, they’d have it on the shelves 🙂
