According to Josh Radnor, who’s best known for playing the role of Ted on How I Met Your Mother, his new film Happythankyoumoreplease is a love letter to New York City. The film, which was written and directed by Radnor, won the Audience Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and premiered last Friday at The Angelika.

"In New York, you walk out your door and anything can happen," Radnor said during a party after the premiere. Aside from being a shout out to Manhattan, Happythankyoumoreplease is a meditation on the woes of late-twenties creative types that manages to encapsulate the fear and dread that come with nearing 30 without having made it. Wearing a corduroy sport jacket atop a dark blue sweater and a dress shirt, Radnor looked much like the blearyeyed, existential novelist that he portrays in the film, but with one distinct difference: Unlike his character, the look in Radnor’s eyes lacked the fear and concern of a 29-year-old unpublished writer. Instead, there was unmistakable joy in his eyes, the kind that only comes upon arrival.

Thanks to a booze sponsorship, the black leather mini booths of the Rivington Street nightclub were filled with chatty and smiling partygoers, and they all seemed to be reveling in the film’s success. Pablo Schreiber arrived wearing a grin and a yellow button-down work shirt, looking more like his character on The Wire than the L.A.-loving wannabe filmmaker he plays in Happythankyoumoreplease.

"I hate L.A.," Schreiber said. "So I thought it would be funny to play a character who loves it, but I will never move out there."

I asked Schreiber, who won a Drama Desk Award in 2009, when he felt like he’d actually made it and that everything was going to be all right. "I don’t know if you ever feel like things are going to be all right, but what really settled me down was having a child. Suddenly your career and all the bullshit doesn’t seem as important."

Drinking and laughing against the backdrop of the strange, DNA-patterned wallpaper at CV Bar, actors and producers alike—including Paper Street Films’ Benji Kohn and Austin Stark, who produced Happythankyou—seemed both thrilled and at ease, but around the room a few slightly fresher faces looked a bit less secure. Brian Hesher, a young, blond aspiring actor, told me that he attended the party because he heard that Scott Rudin would be there.

"Have you ever seen the movie Swimming With Sharks with Kevin Spacey?" he asked. "It’s about a crazy, domineering producer who is kidnapped and held hostage. That movie was based on him!" Hesher stood at attention, sipping a vodka tonic with his eyes fixed on the door.

I had a sudden tinge of regret that I didn’t think to break out an old headshot or bring that script that I’d been working on. After all, making it is only getting harder, and I’m not getting any younger. I thought back to something Radnor had said about his film, "People think that it’s not sophisticated to be positive, and I think that’s backward. I’d like to turn that way of thinking around. That’s the underlying message of the film, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do."

The Gen Art Film Festival kicked off its 15th
year last Wednesday with the premiere of Sundance Audience Award Winner happythankyoumoreplease. The directorial debut of actor Josh Radnor,
better known to Middle America as How I Met Your Mother’s Ted Mosby, the film drew over 1,200 attendees to The
Ziegfeld, some of whom never made it off West 54th
Street.

On hand were Radnor (who also stars) as well as cast members
Malin Akerman, Kate Mara, Pablo Schreiber, Michael Algieri and, of course, the requisite Real Housewife
in search of flash photography (this time it was New Jersey’s Danielle Staub). Following the screening the cast did a quick Q
& A where we learned Mara’s upcoming role in the eagerly anticipated Iron
Man 2 took just one day to film, big budget films have more food
options than indies, and Akerman is taller, thinner and prettier in person than
on screen.

While Radnor seems sure to pick up more accolades for his
screenplay and direction, the audience favorite for the evening was clearly
9-year old actor Algieri in his big
screen debut. As a young orphan who strikes up a relationship with Radnor
(“It’s Dickensian,” as one character points out), the young upstart steals most
scenes from his much older and much more accomplished costars. In explaining
how he came to cast the young actor Radnor explained he had “a stillness about
him.” While quiet, it was quite evident that this was a young man wise beyond
his years, a sentiment Radnor confirmed. “He watches The History Channel and he
dropped presidential facts on us while we were shooting.”

Following the screening the cast headed down to The Park for
the a party where castmate Zoe Kazan,
fresh from her nightly duty of trying to sell Christopher Walken a hand on Broadway, Kazan’s Behanding
boyfriend Anthony Mackie, Carla
Gugino and Law & Order’s
Diane Neal all showed up. The venue was
definitely not the place to try and cram in the hundreds of people making their
way from the premiere. By 11:30 it was all but impossible to move and even
attempting to get a drink was a lost cause. In keeping with the evening’s
theme, one exhausted patron, after repeatedly failing to score a bottle of the
free Stella, said he’d be happy when he got to leave.