By Carmen Wexler
A Genre-Defying Apatow Aims High, But Misfires
The highest grossing movie at this past weekend’s box office is also the most underachieving. The $75 million spent on Judd Apatow’s Funny People more than doubled the combined production budgets of both The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up.
While most of Apatow’s films are known for their humor, Funny People is actually Apatow’s most serious work to date. And with a title that includes the word “funny” in it, there’s no surprise that humor was on audience-radar.
So for Apatow’s traditional gross-out humor targeted audience it goes without saying that a maturing Apatow may not equate to maturing box office numbers. Only problem being that the already mature audiences may already be by Apatow’s genre-tinkering style.
Wait a minute. There's something we need to discuss. We're all pretty terrible to each other.
George Simmons’ (Adam Sandler) character is a little bit of a deadbeat. He demonstrates complete indifference (or even resistance) towards forming or maintaining meaningful relationships with his past love interest Laura(Leslie Mann) and an envious funny-man, Ira Wright (Seth Rogen). All the while, Simmons remains involved in his comedy routines and rock star lifestyle without ever considering an attitude shift until he realizes he might be dying.
While the film itself can at times be contrived or unfocused in more ways than one, Simmons himself is believable. Like ‘Fast Guy’ Eddie Felson in The Hustler or Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler, George Simmons encapsulates the type of character who focuses on his work to distract himself from his cold, broken life. Tragically, it is the resistance to the world outside from their occupation that ultimately brings their downfall. If only these guys would work on building relationships instead of working so hard.
Sandler carries the movie until the plot completely derails in the last forty-five minutes or so. Apatow moronically removes Simmons’ journey at full recovery as we discover that Simmons actually is no longer on his deathbed. From this point on, a contrived, impossible-to-swallow story-line develops which reveals nasty, impulsive characters who would all rather be content in their own misery than live for the moment. The script takes a turn for the worst, pulling a Little Children-shock-value-ending where, in Apatow’s first auteurish statement, the film goes in the opposite direction just for the hell of it.
Perhaps all that Apatow is really trying to say is that marriage is an unfortunate social convention that ruins an otherwise unpredictable, enjoyable life. Or maybe the film is just one giant blow to all of the funny people Apatow surrounded himself with: comedians are comedians because they seek an escape from their lonely, miserable and pathetic lives. These are people Apatow considers to have no place in the real world. Their lives are illusions and they are the magicians of these illusions.
Where Funny People suffers the most is in Apatow’s insistence on jerking the emotions of the audience with the snap of a finger. Pairing toilet humor with morbid derailments melds two incompatible genres with a frustrating result. To laugh or to cry? Apatow’s emotional exploitation is worse than a conventional melodrama which needs music to wring your tears because it asks us to shift our emotions erratically and without warning. It’s like driving on the highway in 2nd gear while going 70mph and then suddenly deciding to hit the brakes and put your car into ‘Park.’ It’s stupid, and everyone else who watches you do this inevitably feels confused and uncomfortable.
It’s not that Apatow isn’t enormously talented. If anything Funny People proves that Apatow has the ability to tell a unique, challenging story. But juxtaposing polarizing genres is really just a ball-buster. In Knocked Up, the humor while over the top and immature, succeeded. But the dramatic elements of the film fell short because they were simply unconvincing. How can we even believe that Katherine Heigl would want to consider keeping the baby and forging a meaningful relationship with Seth Rogen? It’s fresh, it’s different, but it hardly works.
The jokes in Funny People are pointless of course and serve only as an engine of entertainment. And once we eliminate this element and consider the dilapidated drama generated by actors who the rest of the time were not taking themselves seriously, there is nothing left to do but shrug our shoulders. Funny People’s drama which nestles with its comedy is a failed experiment. It’s like trying to build a house of cards on an uneven roof. There are reasons for casting decisions being considered “decisions.” Actors simply cannot convince you that they’re everyone you want them to be.
Carmen Wexler is a Senior Writer for The Film Crusade.
