Sweetness Rules

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2005)

Disappointed by "Wedding Crashers" lack of true comedy and lame attempt at a love story, I awaited "40 Year Old Virgin" with the same hopeful anxiety I attach to the Chicago Cubs, hoping for greatness but anticipating tragic levels of failure. I am pleased to report that this film is more like the Boston Red Sox, every time you think you've seen it all, it's finished, there's no hope left for sex-comedies, it will forever be an endless parade of fart jokes and catchphrases, out pops this gem. Don't get me wrong, this movie is crass, it is rude, it assails your sensibilities and outrages uptight Christians. But it bears a closer resemblance to "There's Something About Mary" and not as much to "American Pie", it's teenage counterpart. See, this film is produced, written, directed and acted by genuinely funny and intelligent people, and what results is a genuinely funny and intelligent film. It's imperfect, sure, but it aspires to achieve that which it achieves, and that's a lot.
I can't think of a film that makes the non-virgins look sort of uncool too, unlike the equally virginity obsessed "American Pie". But this film is a film about four men growing to true sexual and emotional maturity, albeit through some particularly hilarious means. Steve Carell plays the affable Andy, a closet virgin who has tried over the years but just ended up blowing it (pardon the pun). He works at a low-wage electronics store job and is surrounded by other stunted youths. Their obsession with sex is his obsession with action figures; it's pleasurable and it's fun, but they don't realize that they don't get it.
One of Andy's coworkers is a pensive dude who at first seems like the sanest one but soon comes off as the most confused. Then you have his black friend who is convinced he has to be a playa to not be a playa hater.
And Paul Rudd portrays a sympathetic loner who obsesses over a girl he never earned and wishes he was still dating. Compared to these three, who gode Andy into sexual maturity, Andy seems relatively stable. But it takes some real shaking up for the four friends to realize that real sexuality is about more than "getting lucky" with hot chicks. And then there's all those parts that are just hilarious. And that's the thing about this movie, it makes its point without sounding like a Republican senator or Pat Robertson. It's a bunch of hip dudes realizing that sexsexsexsexsex isn't all it's cracked up to be, and maybe we should all slow down and wait it out, be careful, see what happens. Andy learns the value of relationships and then is free to explore sex with a clean conscience, something we all would love no doubt, in hindsight after all.