I Love You, Man

Rating: 5/10 (14 February 2012)

The title was a good way to indicate it was obviously a buddy comedy, and I found out the two leading stars in it, so I was very keen to give it a go, from director John Hamburg (Along Came Polly). Basically realtor and aspiring developer Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) has proposed marriage to his entrepreneur girlfriend Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones) after they have been dating eight for months, and she has accepted. The only problem though is that Zooey has many female friends for her wedding party, but Peter has hardly any real male friends as he is more often surrounded by women, he seems closer to his mother Joyce (Jane Curtin) than his father Oswald (J.K. Simmons) or young gay brother (Andy Samberg). To try and find a new male friend, and a best man for the wedding, Peter goes on a few "man dates", all unsuccessful because of the men being annoying or weird, but eventually in an open house he meets financial investor Sydney Fife (Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Jason Segel). Sydney is a straightforward guy who speaks very openly about his opinions about things like women, sex and stuff, he is like an overgrown adolescent, but Peter warms to this attitude he has and feels cool and calm around him, including to open up. Sydney is becoming more and more a bigger part of Peter's life, so much so that he is trying to balance his time with his new best friend and his fiancée Zooey, so there is a dinner together for example. There are the small moments though where Zooey and he open up about things he and his friend have talked about, for example, the reason why she does not want to give him blowjobs, which he likes. It comes to a point when Peter can't handle Sydney anymore and puts an end to their relationship, but of course he misses him to much, and they do make up in time for the wedding, and he is happy to have Sydney as his best man, and Peter and Zooey marry happily. Also starring Sarah Burns as Hailey, My Name Is Earl's Jaime Pressly as Denise and Jon Favreau as Barry. Rudd, having been supporting actor more often, gives a good leading performance as the man brightening up through the relationship with his new friend, and Segel is of course fantastic being immature most of the time and questioning and answering openly about almost anything, it is obvious most of the jokes come from the immaturity, but there are the small tender moments as well, so all in all it is a good fun comedy. Worth watching!