Mike Birbiglia and Ira Glass, the director and producer team behind 2012’s Sleepwalk With Me, return with another realistic look at the lifestyle and cost of making a career of pursuing a life in comedy in the bittersweet and excellent Don’t Think Twice. Check out our review after the jump.

Mike Birbiglia’s first film Sleepwalk With Me was a thinly-veiled, warts and all memoir of his life in stand-upcomedy and the personal toll it took on himself and his loved ones. His second film changes the focus from looking at a solo stand-up’s career and looks at what happens in an improv troupe when one of its members finds success om a grander stage. Birbiglia plays Miles, the head of the stand-up troupe ‘The Commune.’ The Commune teaches and performs improv at a theater called Improv for America and in the past some of the members that Miles has brought in have found great success on the late night sketch show ‘Weekend Live’ (a thinly veiled expy for SNL). Miles and the troupe live together in a loft and have been trying to make it for many years as Miles himself is now pushing 40. Jack (Keegan-Michael Key) and Sam (Gillian Jacobs) are key members of the troupe and live together as a couple. Sam defines herself as a member of The Commune; having had a difficult life prior to finding improv and considers the troupe her lifeline. Jack has been trying to make it onto Weekend Live for some time and that is his end goal as a comedian. One night, Miles learns from the owner of the theater that it is closing down and a group from Weekend Live is coming down to check out the troupe one last time to fill some cast spots. The Weekend Live crew come down and the events of that evening serve to put the events of the plot in motion. Some members are offered a chance to audition for Weekend Live, some miss the performance and those who don’t make it find themselves questioning where to move on with their lives.

Though the film is grounded in the world of improv comedy, Don’t Think Twice rings true for anyone in a creative relationship or endeavor. When you have been involved in something for a long time and it seems less likely that you will meet your long term goals, it can be a crushing and frustrating experience. You coem to resent those people who have made it before you. You questions whether they are as talented as you are. You wonder if maybe you never had “it.” You come to question whether your choices leading you to this point have been foolish. Don’t Think Twice touches on all these feelings and asks those questions of its characters. It also shows us that the grass on the other side isn’t necessarily greener; that when you reach your dream, it isn’t all its cracked up to be. Gillian Jacobs and Chris Gethard in particular give very rich performances and present very relatable and vulnerable characters in this film. Keegan-Michael Key and Birbiglia both show off their dramatic chops playing funny yet flawed people and drama is an area both should explore further.