An Adult Version of the Teeny Flicks

Rating: 6/10 (10 January 2006)

Raucous humor, outrageous interpersonal situations, potty mouth, and over the top jokes have long been the successful turf of countless summer movies aimed at the teen crowd, films such as the endless American Pie series, Dumb and Dumberer, There's Something About Mary, etc. Now there is a new trend aimed at the thirty to forty something audiences that mimics the earlier teen subjects. THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN falls into this category along with WEDDING CRASHERS et al, but there is a difference with this one: empathy.
The story is slight: an uptight, loner, action heroes collecting, non-driving bicycle-riding punctual worker in a boring firm is now forty years old and is still a virgin - a fact that bothers him deeply but his virginity has developed into a phobia for close encounters of the female kind. His work partners discover his secret over poker and pledge to resolve the problem by getting him laid, in some of the most negative possible of suggestions. After endless trials to resolve his sexual vacuum he meets a forty something grandmother and in a mutually agreed pact they decide to date without sex for 20 dates before they allow physical activity to occur. In the process the friends at work (including the seductive female manager) learn a thing or two about their own life styles and the film ends in a bizarre musical number that pushes it over the top while tapping at the heart.
Steve Carell co-wrote the script (with Director Judd Apatow) and it shows. His 'Andy' may be a nerd but his adaptation to his problematic existence is sweet and charismatic. Likewise, his office entourage (Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Romany Jay, Jane Lynch) gives us three-dimensional characters each of which shows some personal growth of their own during their experiments for Andy. The real glow of the film is due to the presence of Catherine Keener as the 'grandmother' for whom Andy falls. Whenever she is on the screen lights flash and reality sets in. The real problem for this viewer is that the slapstick portion of the film simply goes on too long. Apatow needs to rethink comedy in a way that reminds him that brevity is better: two hours is way too long for this very short story. Though it has redeeming graces, this is a film for a audience tolerant of the silly and the gross who is willing to wade through the first three-fourths of the film to catch the quietly tender social comment the film contains. Grady Harp