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"The Unbookables” is a narrative documentary about standup comics who have spent their careers pushing limits: on stage and off. Relegated to small venues and touring in a crappy 1976 camper-van through the Midwestern US, they careen between the desire to succeed and the reality that there may be nothing left to lose.

Road life is far from glamorous: comics come and go and cruel pranks and hard drinking punctuate their obsidian-dark comedy. They succeed and fail—spectacularly.

As the tour proceeds through Texas and Kansas, other Unbookables join the fray. We visit decrepit hotels and mid-century city-scapes as the comics indulge their addictions and goad each to do riskier bits onstage. When they face being fired for going too far at a comedy club, the conflict culminates in a showdown: compromise or double down?

Fiercely proud of their uncompromising art, we learn of a world in which the audience isn’t always right, and where making people laugh isn’t always as important as making people think.

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