‘The Debut’ Review: Julianne Moore Is Astonishing in Jesse Eisenberg’s Funny and Dizzying Community-Theater Comedy

Moore plays a wallflower who goes full Method in a film that's like "Waiting for Guffman" made by the Coen brothers at their most rivetingly unhinged.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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It’s rare these days to find comedy and humanity on the same plate — and even more rare to see comedy nuzzling up to mystery. (I don’t mean mystery as in crime-solving; I mean the mystery of existence.) But Jesse Eisenberg’s “The Debut,” a small-town-theater comedy driven by big ideas, is a funny and dizzying mind-bender. It’s like “Waiting for Guffman” made by the Coen brothers at their most rivetingly unhinged. “The Debut” won’t be for everyone, but if you get onto its wavelength (which I did immediately), it sucks you into its “Twilight Zone of Sub-Broadway” vortex, even as the tone remains light and ticklish and surprising.

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