In recent years the comedy genre has gone through a number of upheavals. The gross out fare which so appealed has evolved into a more sickly sweetly variant. Films such as the 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up while containing a high quota of gross out material also contained some truly sweet moments and heart. The other major evolution in the genre has been the resurgence of the spoof movie, which I'm not even going to discuss. The latest comedy to hit our shores is the entertaining Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
The first thing that struck me and no it wasn't the full frontal male nudity, was how being a producer these days makes any film you work on your very own. The ad campaigns and critics have all been labeling the film as a Judd Apatow effort when in fact if anything it's a Jason Segel film given that he not only wrote it but also features as the leading man.
Segel is Peter Bretter a 30ish musician who makes a living creating atmosphere for a cop drama which stars his now ex-girlfriend Sarah Marshall and the genuinely brilliant Billy Baldwin. Fol owing their breakup, Peter heads to Hawaii to try and get over her only to discover that Sarah is also in Hawaii, staying at the same resort.
The characters are an assortment of lovable oddballs, the humour never relies on gross out and the performances are all spot on, even Russel Brand is absolutely brilliant playing what appears to be himself. #
The supporting cast is made up of Apatow favourites, including the ever brilliant Paul Rudd who features as the films most genuinely funny character. He manages to steal every scene he's in and you sorely wish that he had been given more screen time.The similarities between Apatow's modern classic Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall extend beyond the cast. Both take a situation which by all accounts should not be funny yet manage to wring some genuine humour from the situation.
At times a lot of the humour feels borrowed, in fact one of the main comedic scenes is almost identical to a joke from How I Met Your Mother which incidentally enough also involved Jason Segel's character. There's a refreshing familiarity to most of the gags, we've seen it all before but the superior script compensates for this, and any film which features a Muppet musical about Dracula is worth a viewing in my book.
The main problem with the film is that the peripheral characters are responsible for the films biggest laughs while the main thrust of the story involving the two new romances are all a bit meh. This being most evident in a dinner scene where both new couples share a meal with only Brand impressing. Segel lacks the everyman charm of Seth Rogan, but Mila Kunis is an absolute joy to watch. She manages to strike the perfect cord between humour and pathos without ever crossing into melodrama.
Over all Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a fine addition to the "Apatow" cannon and well deserving of it's place alongside Knocked Up and Superbad. The final musical performance involving Muppets bodes well for Segel and director Nicholas Stoller's proposed Muppet Movie.
4 comments:
Is the overall story worth the watch if you don't find Apatow movies generally funny?
I liked Knocked Up and Superbad not for their comedy but for their quirky stories, because I don't love the jokes in those movies.
There's a number of quirky characters and the story is done very well. It takes the artypical guy getting over gf arc cnd goes with it. I liked Knocked Up and Superbad but felt that the comedy was only mediocre while the storylines were far superior.
And remember this isn't an Apatow film, he only produces it. I'd say give it a shot, there's far worse films out there and like I said in the review it has the best Muppet musical scene of all time. Worth the price of admission alone.
I don't know - thought it was very standard. Only thing that propels it into 'worth a watch' territory is the great cast (Segel and Kristen Bell especially) and some very funny moments (the aforementioned musical, some other scattered moments of inspiration). But belly laughs are few and far between, which is a shame considering the talent involved. Still preferrable to a standard, innocent rom-com, but overall I was disapointed by this, and am looking foward to Apatow returning behind the camera himself: of all the films made by his crew, his are the only ones I truly adore.
There's a certain degree of justification for marketing Apatow-produced films under an Apatow brand. They do share a lot of thematic resemblance to each other, and to the films that Apatow actually wrote and directed.
It's possible that a lot of Apatow-produced films are inspired by his own films, or his style, and that Apatow chooses to produce them because of that similarity in style. Maybe marketing hypes his producer credit to highlight the similarity.
But as long as he doesn't devalue his brand by producing an excessive number of duds with his name high in the marketing, he's doing a favor both for himself and for the writers and directors who work under his brand, because as long as he's a credible brand the name helps sell the films.
Anyway, I think Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the closest thing I've seen to Apatow's own writer-producer efforts in his producer-credit list. I liked it a bit better than Superbad (Sarah had no dumb-cop clutter), and almost as well as Knocked Up and 40 Year Old Virgin.
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