Written by: Judd Apatow
Directed by: Judd Apatow
7/7
This is not a funny movie. It IS a movie about people who are funny (I believe Apatow graduated from the frugal school of moving naming) involved in all the things about our world that are not funny. And it made me laugh, but not with the oh-my-god-must-change-pants regularity of "The Forty Year Old Virgin" or even with the quiet terror of "Observe and Report". This was a film, and I use the word purposefully. Not a comedy, not a movie, but a true film.
Perhaps it was the markedly understated cinematography from living legend Janusz Kaminski (slumming it would seem between Spielberg outings) or maybe it was the best-of-his-career performance from Adam Sandler (who would've known he could be so powerful playing himself?) but so many elements of this film struck me as masterful that I found myself unable to label it a 'movie'. So he'll never be Soderberg or Bergman (how many times have I typed 'berg' in this last paragraph?) , Apatow has done what every legendary film maker does in their career, moved from making genre to making filmic literature.
"What?" You say, "but the whole movie is an overlong pondering on dick jokes, commentaries on masturbating and musings on narrow vagina's". Yet, it is those things that make the movie so powerful. The characters aren't making dick jokes because they are trying to make us, the audience laugh. They are making dick jokes because it's what they do. Anyone who's ever been to Yuck Yucks knows that a good dick joke is the bread and butter of stand up comics. So this isn't Apatow trying to shock, this is comics as they are. "Funny People" presents a beautiful insight into the worlds of the people who we demand make us laugh, and the presence of the comically 'un-funny' films of Sandler's George Simmons throughout the movie only work to reinforce the idea that this is not a comedy, but a treatise on those who make us laugh.
Seth Rogen's Ira Wright (or Weiner, as you like) is less obnoxious to a power of ten than the multiple other iterations we've been presented with in the past. Seeing Jason Schwartzman as the guy who fucks the girl is a brilliant piece of casting (as much a piece as the "Hey Teach" show he leads). But, as stated before, hats off to Sandler who anchors the film in stark reality. His turn with the married woman at the end reminds us that no matter how 'mature' we may think we are, love can still make a fool out of us all. By the way, no offense to any of them out there who may be reading, but Eric Bana wasn't acting. That was a true red blooded Aussie male, through and through.
No wonder that the actual 'Stand Up' parts in the film (few and far between, cleverly so) are hardly as funny as the rest of the dialogue. Parts of the film, I felt I really was back in twelfth grade watching a bad VHS copy of "Lenny". Apatow even gets props for re-mastering the race-to-the-airport sequence, inverting it and making it even more of an unmitigated disaster than it would've been had Ira never taken to the wheel.
All in all, a true masterpiece from someone who we'd never expect to deliver one. It's highly unlikely that Apatow will ever again hit on something so real, but I will rest easy knowing that when he went looking for, Apatow found his sad clown.
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