Satires are not always comedies, just like comedies are not always satires. Examples: "Robocop", "District 9", "Starship Troopers", "Stepford Wives" ...these are all brilliant satires; yet they are not comedies.
I think it's misleading for Pumpkin to be advertised as a comedy. Sure, it's packed full of subtle humour, but like the films I mentioned above, its intent is probably not to make us laugh out loud. Its intent is to give us an offbeat look at society without taking itself too seriously. So if you go into this film expecting something "HYSTERICALLY FUNNY" (says the Washington Post), you might be disappointed.
Another caveat: this film is not about disabled people--not like, say, "Shine" or "My Left Foot". True, the plot is about a sorority girl who gets into an "inappropriate" relationship with a mentally challenged boy, but that's just a metaphor for what the film is really hitting us with. The film simply uses this metaphor to illustrate the screwed-up norms of human society. Pay attention early on to the speech Christina Ricci gives about how sororities & fraternities end up dividing us, labeling us and creating differences where none really exist. I believe that encapsulates what this film is trying to tell us about our world, and you'll realize it's a lot more than just a romantic comedy.
In order to fully appreciate this film, you CANNOT take anything at face value. Everything ...even the wooden acting or the melodramatic pill scene or the exploding car (lol)... is designed to be over-the-top, showing us a bizarre world and giving a little wink to the audience. Almost every scene will have you wondering if the filmmakers were being ironic, and that's the beauty of unravelling a film such as this. It's very subtle but well executed, almost like Hitchcock's brand of humour in Strangers on a Train which, similarly, pokes fun at the veneer of polite society hiding the screwed-uppedness beneath (in fact, "Pumpkin" has a tennis scene that's reminiscent of the tennis scene in the "Strangers").
I'm not sure if everyone will like Pumpkin but I sure did. If you're a fan of the 4 satires I mentioned in my 1st paragraph, I think you'll like it. If so, I highly recommend the Mexican film "Casi Divas" (2008) about a cut-throat talent competition, and the Spanish movie "El Crimen Ferpecto" (2004) about a man trapped in a department store overnight. Along with "Pumpkin", these are light-hearted gems that make us think hard about the human condition. Oh don't forget "Heathers" (1988) which fits right in with the bunch, though a bit on the darker side.
