Funny People

Funny People is an occasionally hilarious, incredibly flawed piece of intimate filmmaking that ultimately results in Judd Apatow’s weakest movie yet. Abandoning the come-for-the-concept, stay-for-the-charming-story format of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, Apatow tries to make a masterpiece but ends with an overlong drag that should’ve been split into two different movies after the first draft.

Seriously, it’s two separate movies. The first is about a hungry young semi-talented comic named Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) who gets a job assisting a dying superstar named George Simmons (Adam Sandler). It takes place in the world of comedians, has a lot of legitimately funny jokes and some cool cameos, and is really pretty good. The second is a completely humorless love triangle between Simmons, his old flame Laura (Leslie Mann) and her husband Clarke (Eric Bana).

The thing is, the movie sets up Ira as the main character in the first half, but then has nothing for him to do in the second half. Well, that’s only one thing. The momentum also grinds to a screeching halt: whereas the first half took place over the course of a month or more, the second half takes place over two days. In movies that have better scripts, that might’ve increased the tension. Here, it’s like whiplash, especially since the movie immediately stops even trying to be funny.

Even worse, Apatow takes us down this rabbit hole only to chicken out at the end. Simmons comes extremely close to breaking up Laura’s marriage and family, and you know — you just know — that if he did, he’d screw up, break Laura’s heart, and ruin her life. That’s heavy, interesting stuff. Instead of actually dealing with it, Apatow pulls back, dumps the storyline completely, and wraps the movie up as if it had been a buddy comedy between Sandler and Rogen.

C’mon, man. Your scripts for The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up were so good! I still talk about how brilliant Knocked Up is to anyone who will listen. You’ve been given free range to do whatever you want after the successes of those previous movies, and the result is a movie severely in need of some discipline.

The actors, to their credit, are all terrific, especially Sandler. That makes it all the more depressing that Apatow has failed them.

Hollywood screenwriter John August (Big Fish) has talked before about how every screenwriter’s first script is written under the assumption that they’ll never have another chance to write anything, and so their inclination is to cram in everything they know about everything, and everything they’ve ever wanted to write about. That’s what Funny People feels like. The results: a mess.

Grade: C

Synopsis:

Over the past few years, writer/director Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) has shown that nothing"”not

even losing your virginity or the miracle of childbirth"”is sacred. About his third film behind the camera, he says, "I'm trying to make a very serious movie that is twice as funny as my other movies. Wish me luck!" Apatow directs Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann in Funny People, the story of a famous comedian who has a near-death experience. Adam Sandler, Eric Bana, Jason Schwartzman, RZA and newcomer Aubrey Plaza join a cast that reunites Judd Apatow with Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann and Jonah Hill in their third comedy together.