Funny People

I have always believed there were not enough movies about stand up comedy. Stand up comedy is a fascinating world full of characters who are self loathing and nasty. It is a world where it seems like no one is ever really happy and if you run across a happy stand up comic, other comics tend to hate that person. Comics appear, to me, to make great subjects for a movie, but they do present challenges because in my mind, the movie about a stand up comic has to be equal parts funny and nasty and who wants to watch a movie that is just as nasty or mean spirited as it is funny. Enter, Judd Apatow's Funny People.

George Simmons(Adam Sandler) is a world famous actor, who got his start in the world of stand up comedy. After a visit to the doctor's office, where he found out he is probably going to die from a kind of leukemia, George hits the stage again. Only this time, it is some dark twisted comedy that does not really elicit the kind of laughs Simmons usually gets. Simmons is all alone. He has no friends, no family and no one on whom to lean now that things get nasty, until he meets Ira Wright(Seth Rogen), a struggling comedian who went on after Simmons and made fun of Simmons. Quickly, Simmons asks Ira and his friend, Leo(Jonah Hill) to write jokes for him. Ira takes the job and in no time, Ira is getting a serious glimpse into the good life and getting a first row seat to how George Simmons deals with dying. Then something miraculous happens and Simmons gets better. With a second chance at life, Simmons is convinced the key to his happiness is getting back the love of his life, who is now married with kids and living in San Francisco. Laura(Leslie Mann) was the one who got away and George believes he can get her back because she is married to a jerk, Clarke(Eric Bana), who spends more time away than at home. But, has George really changed? Can George be a different person from the guy he was before he nearly died?

Judd Apatow has created kind of a conundrum of a movie because he calls it Funny People and it stars a lot of very funny people, and it is funny, but it does not have any terribly likable characters. Apatow's previous movies featured a sad sack, but likable lead and in this, Sandler's George Simmons is a mean spirited, self loathing asshole. He lashes out at Ira when Ira is just trying to help and Simmons' only concern is Simmons. Then Ira, played with perfect energy from Rogen, is not totally likable either. He is an opportunist who is not exactly happy that his friends/roommates, Leo and Mark(Jason Schwartzman) are more successful than he is, but then again, the friends are jerks too. Everyone is selfish; everyone is mean and no one is really happy with who they are. This makes for a tough movie. Apatow is asking us to watch a movie that is over 2 hours long, and to care about these people, without making any of them really likable, and I love it for that reason!

The movie is funny, supremely funny in moments, but yes, it lacks the usual Judd Apatow quotes. It lacks entire scenes of people just sitting around talking. Like his other two movies there is not an abundance of plot or story, but unlike the other two movies, Funny People's dialog is almost all about the story or about what is going on. Sandler is a pretty toned down version of himself and he is not always up to the emotional task of Simmons, but to watch him play a version of the character we all think he is in real life, was an interesting study. He looks at ease on the stage and he has been written some very dark material that appeared to make people in the theater a bit uncomfortable, but what other choice did he have? His character has no real friends. When he finds out he is not sick, he does not have anyone to really share the joy. It is a sad moment and maybe the only I felt for George.

Seth Rogen still looks weird as a slimmed down dude, and it looks like Jonah Hill added all the wight Rogen took off, but their interplay is still hilarious and adding a smug, self satisfied Schwartzman to the mix only helps matters. Then you throw in a cute female comedian for Schwartzman and Rogen to chase, it gets pretty funny. The RZA has two scenes as a co-worker of Rogen's and he is very funny, if a little stereotypical. The comedians who show up as themselves are not there as jokes, but as Judd's nod to the world and he has given that nod to comedians not all that well known as stand up comics, which is nice. There are a few other cameos including a hilarious exchange between Eminem and Ray Romano, but Eric Bana really takes the cake in this one. His Clarke is energetic and a bit of a jerk, but he is a man who is trying to calm down with rhe help of Eastern philosophy. He wants to punch you, then hug you. yes, the scene up in San Fransisco does get a bit indulgent and Leslie Mann is not nearly as funny here as she has been in the past, but Bana does such a bang up job, I kind of forgave that aspect.

Funny People is an uneven movie in terms of pacing and tone, but it is still a very interesting movie. Judd is a lot more visual this time around and there are some cool lighting effects and he is branching out a bit on his style, and I like that. I respect that Apatow wants to mine the serious side of life, using a world that mines depressing things for laughs all of the time. Laughter and pain go together and that is nowhere more evident than in a stand up comic. Judd understands that a movie all about cancer would be too depressing(Hello, My Sister's Keeper), but Judd is interested in the idea of death and life and this is his way of talking about it. Cancer and penis jokes may not exactly be peanut butter and jelly, but Apatow makes them work. The stand up comedy in the movie is no the funniest stand up I have ever heard in my life, but it is funny and there is a character that is obviously a parody of Dane Cook that will make stand up comedy fans pretty happy.

I am not sure this has the replay value of his two previous movies, but I think Apatow has created a nice bridge between what he has done and what he obviously wants to do. Sandler and Rogen make a really good comic team, with Rogen probably not acting when he looks in awe of Sandler. The supporting characters do their part, especially the tall Swedish doctor (perfectly cast, kudos) and I was not disappointed when the movie is over. Perhaps people will go in to the movie thinking it will be nothing but comedy and if that is the case, they might not enjoy how it turns out, but I got pretty much what I expected and what I wanted. I laughed my ass off in moments and I enjoyed being challenged to care about a guy who was not likable.

Final Grade: A-