Review by Matt Finley
Judd Apatow has his fingers planted in so many pop
cultural pies, it’s easy to overlook the fact that, directorially, his output
is far less prolific than his production credits. THIS IS 40, his fourth film
overall, and first since 2009’s FUNNY PEOPLE, returns to the tumultuous
marriage of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann), who originally appeared in
KNOCKED UP as a perpetually squabbling married couple.
Though the film is neither tonally nor topically
surprising, pairing Apatow’s usual mix of raunchy improvisation and scripted
pathos with situational comedy torn from every “take my wife/husband… please”
bit ever written, what is surprising is how well it works. Comedically, mid-life
crises, flagging sex lives, and parenting foibles are well-worn to the point of
forming ruts. 40, like all of Apatow’s best work, manages to balance these
ubiquitous banalities with an acknowledgement of the sublime rage, sadness and
joy that come along with them, eschewing typical mechanical catharsis in favor
of realer, messier (though, sometimes, just as sappy) emotional conflict.
(Granted, if you can’t stomach rich, white people
bemoaning the emotional pitfalls of suburban capitalism… maybe skip this one.)
We catch up with the couple on Deb’s 40th birthday.
She owns a boutique clothing shop, while Pete has started an independent record
label, a well-intentioned money pit preparing to mount its last ditch effort at
success – the reunion of ‘70s British pop outfit Graham Parker and the Rumour. Apatow
and Mann’s real-life daughters, Maude and Iris, round out the main cast as
violently pubescent Sadie and her adorable younger sister Charlotte. Focusing
on characters rather than plot contrivances, the film finds the couple
reexamining their own individual lives – their personal, financial, and
familial successes and failures – and reconsidering what they mean to each
other.
Scenes that, on paper, might read like the
treatment for a dead-in-the water Kevin James cock-up – parents admonish their
kids’ iPod use, Pete and Deb get irreparably high during a weekend getaway, Pete
insists Deb examine a mysterious anal growth – are brought to life by Rudd’s
and Mann’s wholly affable, magnetic performances, and repartee that’s perhaps
not quite as witty as it is profane… but is, at least, wildly creative in its
profanity.
It helps
that the structure isn’t built upon a lazily graphed marital decline followed
by a sudden, epiphany-swaddled axial shift, but, instead, on the more realistic
tumult of a legit relationship, where conflicting emotions exist simultaneously, and the only definite, plotable points are, as the saying goes, death and taxes.
As usual, Apatow grants generous screentime to a
host of supporting characters, all of whom receive scenes that play out almost
as self-contained sketches. Chief among these performances is the scene-pilfering
Melissa McCarthy (BRIDESMAIDS), who plays the enraged mother of one of Sadie’s
classmates. Megan Fox (TRANSFORMERS) holds her own as a foxy salesclerk (okay…
so not a huge stretch), while Chris O’Dowd (BRIDESMAIDS) snarks it up as one of
Pete’s slacker employees and Jason Segel (KNOCKED UP) works his typical creepy,
self-assured shtick.
Even Graham Parker gets in on the action, gamely
poking fun at his age and seeming cultural irrelevance (seriously, though, if
this leads even a hundred people to his 1979 new wave opus Squeezing Out Sparks,
it’s totally worth it).
Albert Brooks and John Lithgow, meanwhile, play dad
to Rudd and Mann respectively. Both are great, but the parental storyline,
which comes to a head during a messy third act, never quite gels.
There’s an undeniable fluidity to the way in which
Apatow and cast intersperse the dialogue with pop culture references. From a
debate about Pixies vs. A-ha to a running gag about Lost, the name-checks seem
less like in-your-face Seth Macfarlanisms than dead-on examples of the way in
which pop culture – the ultimate common tongue of a consumer culture -
shapes our discourse.
Music also plays a critical role – whereas Deb attempts
to forcefully assert her youth through a regular diet of top 40 dance and hip
hop, Pete seems resolved to preserve his by reaching back to the bands of his
adolescence, retreating into timeless songs even as he watches their performers
decay.
THIS IS 40’s greatest strength, though, is its ability
to walk a line between reality and comedy. From the low blows to the childish
vitriol to the pathetic naked emotion, Pete and Deb’s fights (and there are
more than a few) ring true. Whether they’re tangling over Pete’s financial
dishonesties or Deb’s need for control, we recognize in them the same flawed,
damaged, infantile mess of overripe insecurity and unrealized potential that we
are all too familiar with inside ourselves.
Perhaps the film’s broader, more absurd moments
play as heightened, sometimes cheesed-up reality, but a better counterbalance
doesn’t exist - especially in a comedy. If the darker moments remind us that
we’ll never be as good as we’d like, the most joyful ones show the characters –
our fictional surrogates – as the sweet, clever, content paragons of joyfulness
that we, nonetheless, aspire to become. (3 out of 4 stars)
(For another take on this movie, read Pamela Zoslov's review here.)
(For another take on this movie, read Pamela Zoslov's review here.)
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