Everybody likes Andy.

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 2005)

After years of writing some of the funniest things on the Daily Show, Steve Carell takes to his own, this beast that he and director Judd Apatow penned together, The 40 Year Old Virgin.
We've had a lot of gross-out humor movies come and go in the past few years that have had decent parts to them, but very few (Old School, Something about Mary) have ever been complete films. So many just dig directly for the jugular and try to just make you completely forget about an actual storyline that people can look at and identify with, in the least. But Virgin achieves this. It's character development in Andy, the main character is good, along with all secondary characters trying to help this guy get out and let it all hang out, to find that one who's going to get the years of frustration out of him.
Catherine Keener is a steady love interest in this movie, too. Whenever it seems to slow down or the movie comes to a point of eye rolling, the chemistry between Keener and Carell save it, and bring you back around again for another round (of well placed) silly jokes, including that scene that everyone's seen on the commercial, the done-in-one take chest waxing. Why would Carell do that? Because, he wants Andy to be real, he wants the audience to cheer on his dorky forty year old through all of his action figure collecting quirkiness, and by the film's conclusion, there isn't a person in the house who doesn't like him.