It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010)

Actually, it is not funny, this story. It is a movie about perspective, and how hard it is to come by when you are an adolescent.
Craig (Keir Gilchrist), a bright but depressed teenager who's voluntarily checked himself into a hospital psych ward after having persistent thoughts of harming himself. He is immediately overwhelmed by just how ill all his fellow ward-mates are and wants to be discharged minutes after he arrives. He is befriended by Zach Galifianakis (as Bobby), a man with multiple suicide attempts and little go9ing for him beyond his very wonderful 8 year old daughter. One highlights is when they do a karyoke routine in which the introverted 15-year-old both opens up and glams it up, lip-synching to Freddie Mercury while Zach Galifianakis — sporting a cape during this sequence, the second time he's done so in his past two films — backs him up by pantomiming his way through the Bowie lines. Given the setting and the uptight protagonist, it's a little too on-the-nose. But it also feels kind of right for this movie. A sweet-natured modernized One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest for the teen set, It's Kind of a Funny Story is based on a young-adult novel, so clichés can be expected.
How did Craig get into the hospital to begin with? The pressure of performance anxiety has taken its toll on Craig: he projectile-vomits at the thought of disappointing his dad (Jim Gaffigan) and quietly pines after his best friend's girl, Nia (Zoe Kravitz, daughter of Lenny and Lisa Bonet). Then he meets Noelle (Emma Roberts, Julia's niece), a cute, lanky girl prone to cutting herself.
Craig packs quite a lot into the five days of hospitalization that follow, from recognizing his true talent as a visual artist (I'll even grant him his imagined rock-star status) to curing his dyspepsia, solving other patients' problems, and, yes, even finding a girlfriend. Imagine what he could accomplish if he weren't so depressed! Sure, it's wish fulfillment of a fantastic order, and easy to enjoy the simple and even kind of funny pleasures to be found here.