40 Years Later

Rating: Null/10 (30 June 2008)

I recently write in my comment for Get Smart (Peter Segal, 2008) that I do found funny Steve Carell but not that funny to get me excited every time he has a new film so I never has real desires to watch Get Smart on the big screen (eventually I do watch it). A similar thing happened to me with this film, back in 2005 when it was released in my country, so I never saw The 40 Year Old Virgin on the big screen but I heard some good things about it and also read in this site good things about it so I had some desires to give it a chance but still wasn't the very first option. I have to mention Get Smart again because after founding a very funny Carell on that film I finally decided to watch this comedy and it was a very good decision.
Well, Andy (Steve Carell) is the mentioned virgin and a worker of an electronics store, a collector of toys and obviously the kind of shy guy who never has a real contact with his partners at work that in this case are Jay (Romany Malco), Cal (Seth Rogen) and David (Paul Rudd). Quickly, during a poker match, the three friends knows Andy's secret ad the first part of the film is just a hilarious search for Andy's first sexual experience, of course with the help of Jay, Cal and David. Trish Piedmont (Catherine Keener) is the woman in who Andy has a real interest but still the guy needs just sex and following the many different advices of his friends he believes that he is not ready for Trish. Finally meeting really Trish makes a kind of more serious movie thanks to this "serious" relationship but is still hilarious and again bad luck, karma or whatever but again when sex is near for Andy something always happens. In this case the 16 years old daughter of Trish (Kat Dennings) appears in Andy's life and his relation with Trish turns better but they will have sex till the 20th date. This part has a scene that definitely is not the funniest one of the entire movie but the situation in that scene is the funniest one of the movie. Imagine a 16 years old girl and a 40 years old man together in a orientation meeting about sex and both with a lot of desires to have their first sexual experience, both interested about the meeting and both considered liars when both confess their virginity. Great scene. The conclusion is even kind of sweet and of course is a really happy ending for Andy and in consequence for Trish and with the help of some expensive toys they are a very happy couple.
Cast: Steve Carell is simply terrific and perhaps this is his best work till now. The group of friends is hilarious, even with their simple conclusion, and Malco, Rogen and Rudd are very good. To mention the character of Gerry Bednob, Mooj, that is one of the funniest things of the film. Nothing to write about Catherine Keener apart that she is a great actress and that she has been part of terrific films, my favourites with her are Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999) and Living in Oblivion (Tom DiCillo, 1995).
Conclusion: I expected a very funny film but still this was a really pleasant surprise since comedies from the Apatow productions don't looked very interesting to me (with the exception of Walk Hard) and after watching Drillbit Taylor they looked less interesting. Well I really enjoyed this comedy, the unrated version (133 minutes), and I think is time to finally watch Superbad and Knocked Up, after all the hype.