Sam (Rachel Sennott) is depressed. Dissociative and disconnected, she spends her days bed-rotting, microwaving lunch meat and searching her name on Twitter. Never mind getting onstage at Toronto’s Comedy Bar, where she used to titillate audiences with her material about sex, dating, shopping and periods, Sam can’t even leave the house.

Sam doesn’t feel funny anymore. Her brain is too occupied by her PTSD. Her roommates Paige and Philip (Sabrina Jalees and Caleb Hearon) are sympathetic but tired, her ex-boyfriend Noah (Ennis Esmer) is confused and sad. To make matters worse, Brooke (Olga Petsa), the teenager Sam used to nanny, has been reported missing. The last time Sam saw her was when Brooke showed up on her doorstep after lobbing a rock through her window in a drunken rage, calling her a liar.

This is the situation into which we are dropped at the outset of Ally Pankiw’s “I Used to Be Funny,” a story of trauma, catharsis and stand-up comedy. Through a jarring nonlinear narrative composed of flashbacks, memories and the harsh reality of the present, we will wind our way through Sam’s broken psyche to piece together the puzzle of what happened. Sadly, it’s almost too obvious from the outset.

Sennott, who got her start in stand-up comedy, but has become an indie film darling with genre-spanning films like “Shiva Baby,” “Bodies Bodies Bodies” and “Bottoms,” has demonstrated she can hold her own as an actor. But “I Used to Be Funny” is her most dramatically demanding role yet. It’s a stretch, and she just manages it, but proves she can lead a movie as the emotional anchor in a role that demands a wide range.

The film is a character study in contrasts, glimpsed in moments over the course of a few years. The dead-eyed, bedridden Sam is a far cry from the easygoing young woman who interviews for an au pair job with a Toronto police officer, Cameron (Jason Jones), to care for his 12-year-old daughter Brooke, while her mother is hospitalized with a terminal illness. Though Brooke is too old for a nanny or babysitter, Sam becomes a crucial presence in her life, a big sister, friend and sometimes surrogate mother.

In flashbacks, Sam’s nonchalant charisma conveys a relaxed and confident young woman, but in Sennott’s performance, we can see the careful effort required of Sam to maintain this outward demeanor, charming, assuaging and placating those around her — especially men. She wants to prove she can hold her own, that she is funny, that she is worthy of attention, but this kind of humorous soothing is also a survival mechanism, a safety strategy that women have honed over years of socialization.

Sam used to joke in her set that her flirty move on dates is to make men pinky promise they won’t murder her. Making light of violence against women is part of her act, castrating its power, denaturing the sting. Then she becomes paralyzed by actual violence, and Pankiw slowly reveals the events to us as Sam becomes more willing to open her mind to the memories, facing her demons simply because she can’t do anything else.

Pankiw has been honing her screenplay for over a decade, and while some of the plot beats hew toward heightened melodrama within this lo-fi indie milieu, the writing itself is insightful, incisive and authentic. Sam’s guilt over her condition, believing herself unworthy of kindness and love, is deeply relatable. Casting real comedians like Sennott, Jalees, Hearon and Esmer also makes for dialogue that feels real, and funny, their irrepressible riffing a natural part of their conversations. And Sennott is ably matched by Petsa, a fantastic young actor, in navigating the emotional roller coaster of this complicated story.

Pankiw keeps the visual style gritty and low-key, with understated but lovely cinematography by Nina Djacic. The formal experimentation is relegated to the edit and story structure, which unfolds in jagged ellipticals, mimicking a fickle, troubled mind. Many of the uncomfortable ideas are explored in Sam’s comedy, a masterful way for Pankiw to tackle these themes. In her film debut, she delivers a full, and fulfilling, narrative arc that is anchored by a surprisingly complex performance from Sennott. Rooted in place, character and emotional truth. “I Used to Be Funny” is a rare indie gem worth discovering.

‘I Used to be Funny’

3 stars (out of 4)

No MPA rating (some swearing, sex, and teen drinking and drug use)

Running time: 1:45

How to watch: In theaters on Friday, June 7

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The two hottest trends in arena concerts right now are soft sales and canceled tours.

Ticket listings for the Black Keys’ upcoming tour disappeared from Ticketmaster on the Friday that opened Memorial Day weekend. A week later, Jennifer Lopez announced her upcoming self-financed tour wasn’t going to happen as she was “taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends.”

Meanwhile, heavy hitters like Justin Timberlake and Billie Eilish have upcoming Xcel Energy Center shows with vast banks of unsold seats.

What’s going on?

The Black Keys didn’t formally announced that they axed the tour and didn’t make a statement until days later, after some fans speculated on social media about the duo’s health and well being. “The band wants to assure everyone that Dan and Patrick are alive and well,” they posted on social media. “We have decided to make some changes to the North American leg of the International Players tour that will enable us to offer a similarly exciting, intimate experience for both fans and the band, and will be announcing a revised set of dates shortly.”

A “similarly exciting, intimate experience” is a nice way to say that ticket sales were so bad, they’re going to retreat to smaller venues. There was plenty of online chatter about the Black Keys even playing arenas in the first place, but back in the ’10s, they enjoyed a sold run of arena tours, including three stops at Target Center.

Anyone who saw the Black Keys phone it in last August in front of a half-full Minnesota State Fair Grandstand knew something was up with the blues rockers. Much like their 2019 show at Target Center, guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney seemed distant and disinterested, in each other and the crowd. It didn’t help matters that the three albums they’ve released since 2021 failed to find much interest among listeners. Their most recent one, “Ohio Players,” peaked at No. 26 on the Billboard charts, the pair’s lowest ranking since their 2006 major label debut “Magic Potion.”

The Black Keys guitarist and singer Dan Auerbach performs the song Gold On The Ceiling at Target Center in Minneapolis on Friday, Oct. 24, 2014. (Juan Pablo Ramirez / Pioneer Press)

Lopez had been on a winning streak in the time since she turned 50 in 2019. That same year, she earned raves for her playing an aging stripper in “Hustler,” even though she didn’t land the Oscar nomination so many folks predicted was a lock. She played the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show and her 2022 films “The Mother” and “Shotgun Wedding” drew huge numbers on streaming.

To the surprise of the world, Lopez rekindled her romance with Ben Affleck a year into the pandemic. The couple married in Las Vegas in July 2022 and Lopez was so starry eyed, she made the ill-fated decision to share her love with the world.

Earlier this year, Lopez released the album “This Is Me … Now,” an hourlong film of the same name and “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” a documentary about the making of it all. She invested $20 million into the three projects, which all focus on her romance with Affleck. The tour, in theory, would be the icing on the cake. Turns out, though, no one’s that hungry. (In a splashy Variety feature that ran in February, Lopez’s longtime producing partner Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas said she questioned the entire project: “I was worried … It made me uncomfortable for her.”)

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Canceling tours is not good for business. Also not good: Playing to empty seats.

By any metric, Timberlake stands as one of the most successful pop stars of the past 25 years. After blowing up as the leader of ‘N Sync, the Memphis native went on to find massive success as a solo artist, while carving out a second career in acting. Even as interest in his music has dropped off — he’s scored a mere three Top 10 hits in the past decade — he remained a strong draw on tour. In 2018, he headlined the Super Bowl halftime show and spent a year on the road, including two sold-out stops at Xcel Energy Center.

Timberlake’s current tour seems to be doing well. He announced it in January and added additional dates last month, including a show at the X, with Live Nation announcing more than one million tickets had already been sold. Perhaps local fans didn’t get the memo, because two weeks after it went on sale, the Halloween night show in St. Paul has sold roughly half the floor and just a smattering of seats in the 100 and 200 levels. It’s pretty much unthinkable that he’ll go through with this one if sales don’t pick up.

Billie Eilish performs during Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park on Aug. 3, 2023. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Eilish, who sold out her 2022 Xcel Energy Center debut, has had a remarkably successful career so far and became the second person ever to sweep the four major categories at the 2020 Grammy Awards. While few seats remain for her Nov. 10 show at the X, the Ticketmaster map for Nov. 11 looks a lot like Timberlake’s and is awash with blue dots (which represent unsold seats).

Other shows at the X having trouble with sales include Future and Metro Boomin (July 31), Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper (Aug. 25) and Cigarettes After Sex (Sept. 24). (You’re not alone if your reaction to the latter is “Wait, who?”)

Just like the Black Keys and Lopez, the reasons behind Timberlake and Eilish’s slow sales vary. Timberlake’s latest album fell off the Billboard 200 after four short weeks and he’s become increasingly scrutinized for his history of throwing women like Britney Spears and Janet Jackson under the bus to further his own career. Eilish is playing on an in-the-round stage, drastically upping the number of seats available to sell. Plus, she’s playing on the two worst nights of the week for an arena show, Sunday and Monday.

What they all have in common, however, is a newly choosy audience. Arena shows started trickling back in the latter half of 2021, but truly took off the following two years. Everyone, it seemed, was hitting the road and fans happily gobbled up tickets, even as dynamic pricing led to seats going for hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars. Throw in two massive 2023 outings with worldwide attention — Taylor Swift and Beyonce – and it appears that concertgoing fever has peaked.

A course correction in ticket prices was long overdue, as there are a finite number of acts that can attract a finite number of fans willing to pay big bucks. In May, the Department of Justice sued Live Nation claiming the company, which owns Ticketmaster, is a monopoly that harms fans. If successful, the move would have a seismic impact on the entire concert industry.

Whatever happens, it’s clear that the fans have spoken by not opening their wallets.

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By now you’ve probably noticed the rapid ascent of nicotine pouches like Zyn and Velo. The little round cans are everywhere: advertised in convenience store windows, strewn across the sidewalk, filling social media feeds and infiltrating offices.

Zyn’s synthetic nicotine offers the kick of a cigarette or dip without the cancer-causing smoke and chemicals of tobacco, packaged in a pouch that can be discreetly tucked into the upper lip. But that doesn’t mean they’re risk-free. In fact, we know very little about how nicotine pouches could affect health or addiction trends in the U.S. Moreover, tobacco companies are selling the products in dosages and flavors that seem very clearly designed to appeal to younger users, even though buyers are supposed to be at least 21.

Even without a ton of data, researchers can already tick off reasons for teens to steer clear of Zyn. The most obvious is that nicotine is addictive. “Nicotine is not good for developing brains,” says Brittney Keller-Hamilton, an epidemiologist at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. The chemical commandeers the brain’s reward system, giving it a strong hit of dopamine at a time when the organ is particularly vulnerable to addiction. Using nicotine at a younger age creates a harder-to-kick habit, while priming the user for addiction in general, she says.

So far, industry has sponsored nearly all the scientific publications on nicotine pouches, says Tory Spindle, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The worry, of course, is that “there’s the ‘file drawer dilemma’ where you don’t publish things that aren’t beneficial,” Spindle says. “They’re showing us what is going to help their agenda.” Independent science, not company-funded research, should guide the regulation of nicotine pouches.

The threats posed by different nicotine products are not equal, and it’s fair to say that tobacco-free products like Zyn (sold by Phillip Morris International Inc.) sit at the lower end of the risk spectrum. Indeed, tobacco companies are trying to position them as a harm-reduction tool, suggesting pouches can help curb smokers’ cigarette cravings. The jury is still out on that claim, although at first blush, Zyn doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. My dad was a lifelong smoker, and I’d much rather have been riding shotgun in an Oldsmobile 88 littered with Zyn cans than one stained with cigarette smoke — for his health and mine.

But there’s a wrinkle: We don’t have strong evidence that pouches help people like my dad kick a cigarette addiction. Furthermore, there’s no evidence thus far that they are as safe and effective as products like gums, lozenges and patches, all of which have Food and Drug Administration approval as cessation aids.

Even if proven effective to help people quit tobacco, pouches could have a dangerous underbelly. They come in low-dosage forms that could create a welcoming entrée into nicotine use for teens — the way wine coolers or spiked seltzers are often more appealing to teens and 20-somethings than neat scotch or gin martinis.

Low-dose Zyns might ease a teen into a nicotine habit. “I don’t think it’s been designed for adult smokers,” says Vaughan Rees, director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control, at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Zyn has probably been designed for people who are beginning their tobacco career.”

True, recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that just 3.1% of high school students ever had used a nicotine pouch. But there’s reason to fear those numbers could change quickly. Consider vaping: After several years of little interest in e-cigarettes, teen use suddenly spiked between 2013 and 2015. For some, the habit was a gateway to old-fashioned cigarettes. With vaping rates finally declining, we should prevent this cycle from repeating with nicotine pouches.

Researchers are trying to work as quickly as possible to answer the many critical questions about these products. Those include: Are these an effective harm reduction tool for smokers? And if they are, is that benefit short or long term? Are there health risks to prolonged use? How often do people move from Zyn to riskier products?

And what might enhance their attractiveness or addictiveness to teens? While much attention has focused on flavors, it’s worth considering other factors that could draw teens in. Teen use of Juul skyrocketed after its manufacturer dropped the pH of its products, a move that increased the amount of nicotine absorbed with each puff — and as a result, made vaping more addictive.

And then there’s the gamification and memeification of Zyn. Phillip Morris has hooked users on a points-based rewards system that promises Amazon gift cards and iPads to the most devoted users.

Even if the research ends up proving nicotine pouches help smokers quit, regulators must find a sweet spot where the products are accessible to current tobacco users, but far less attractive to teens and nonusers. That might mean getting rid of those palatable low doses, limiting the flavors, and reining in the ads and games.

There’s no evidence of a mass teen migration to Zyn — yet. But given the tobacco industry’s astounding ability to hook people on their products, it’s not irrational to worry about it. Let’s hope scientists can stay a step ahead this time around.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

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