Film Review - Funny People

Judd Apatow Pulls Off an Impressive Balance of Comedy and Drama

Jul 30, 2009

Don't look now, but Team Apatow has grown up. Those lovable man-boy schlubs aren't just cracking wise about masturbation and defecation anymore.

Sure, they always had heart. Emotional realism is the key to the brand of comedy touted by

director/writer/producer Judd Apatow. With Funny People, though, Apatow completely goes for broke and comes up big.

There's a real darkness around the film's funny bone, and a lot of ambition. It's a struggle between Apatow's competing sentimentality and cynicism, his commercial sense and seeming hatred for the Hollywood rules of the game. Under the muted caress of ace cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's camera, Apatow explores the self-centered loneliness and its flip side, probing the strengths and failures of the nu-American family.

All this heavier subtext may sound like a bit much from the man behind Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. So, for the record -- he still packs in more dick, f--k and fart jokes than anyone this side of Kevin Smith.

A Comedy With an Epic Arc

Stretched across nearly two-and-a-half hours, Funny People cuts the collapse of one superstar (Adam Sandler as the very Sandler-esque George Simmons) against the struggle of a stand up comedian looking for his big break (Seth Rogen, similarly comfortable as Ira Wright).

The opening home video -- it's authentic, from before Sandler became a household name -- sets the perfect balance of tone. His actions are incredibly crude and immature -- putting on an old lady's voice to prank call various businesses. But before we even see Simmons reaction shot, Sandler's celeb status registers a subtle layer of nostalgia for those early starving days, before fame interceded.

When Simmons finds out he has some variation of leukemia, his whole lifestyle comes under self-scrutiny. Apatow is careful to avoid a lot of the more obvious pitfalls of the reevaluating-life-before-death genre, even as Simmons pledges to turn over a new leaf, gets back to what he truly loves (stand up) and chases after the girl that got away (Leslie Mann).

Life Imitates Art and Back and Forth

In a Los Angeles comedy club, Simmons's and Wright's paths converge, resulting in an assistant job for Wright and a friend for Simmons, who aside from casual sex with willing fans, is a bit of a recluse. Perfectly cast in the lead, Sandler turns in his best performance since P.T. Anderson pushed him further then he'd every gone before in Punch Drunk Love.

The man has his limits, as does Rogen, when it comes to the more explicitly dramatic moments. If anything, though, Sandler's previous, um, body of work serves him well. He hasn't done anything quite outrageous as the trash Apatow thinks up for Simmons, but there's an undeniable sting when one character wonders out loud why such a funny guy tends to make such awful movies.

One of the reasons Funny People works so well -- aside from surprisingly deft pacing -- is the clear personal investment on the part of the principles. Sandler and Apatow met and roomed together during their early battles on the comedy club circuit, and Rogen got his start as a teenager doing stand up in his native Canada. The stand up scenes evolve naturally and believably throughout the film, and in respect to the different performers, are appropriately shaky, despicable or enjoyable.

Apatowian Family Values

Ira struggles with an awkward stage presence, trying to emerge from under the shadow of his two roommates, fellow stand up Leo (Jonah Hill) and rising star Mark (Jason Schwartzman) of an awful, fictional (but hardly far fetched) NBC sitcom, Yo Teach!

As Simmons introduces Ira into his life of frivolousness and luxury, his jaded hedonism goes up against Ira's naive optimism. When the film moves to Marin County, where Laura (Mann) and her Aussie businessman husband (Eric Bana) are unhappily settled with kids (Apatow and Mann's children essentially updating their roles in Knocked Up), Funny People starts lose a little steam, but there's plenty of golden material in this stretch of the film.

The Apatowian family (consider the term officially coined) is a strange, brutally honest vision of domesticity. Husband and wife barely tolerate one another for the benefit of the kids, and love becomes a negotiation between affection and convenience. Funny People's version is a bit sadder than the one in Knocked Up, and as in the latter film, the moments of male camaraderie feel more like the real families.

For all its scope, Funny People doesn't have much room for the feminine voice. So Katherine Heigl might've been on to something when she called Knocked Up "a little sexist" (this from the actress who appeared in 27 Dresses and The Ugly Truth, though).

Then again, a sprawling "dramedy" like Funny People is bound to have its minor flaws. It's an imperfect masterpiece from a guy who is willing to challenge himself -- but never without a sense of humor.

VERDICT: Not as tight as Knocked Up, but overall, who knows - it may age better as the more complete film. Go see it.

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