Product: Funny People
Rating: 4.0
"Funny" isn't the right word
My wife and I watched Funny People tonight on PPV. It was better than I expected. Back when it was in the theaters, I joked on Twitter that it should be called "Funny" People. While the observation underlying this criticism is indeed correct - that is, a dramatic representation of comedians misses the mark when the comedians fail to say things that actually make people laugh - there were enough dick jokes to give the story some verisimilitude. The only truly funny person in the movie is Jonah Hill, and following his character would have been way funnier than observing the golly-gee-shucks Seth Rogin be the bitch of the I-hate-everything Adam Sandler. Aziz Ansari is in it as well, and he plays a stand-up, but he doesn't do anything than anyone else couldn't have done. Also, Jason Schwartzman plays a womanizing sitcom actor; I think that he has forgotten that he got famous by playing Max Fisher and instead he thinks that he was Jordan Catalano.The business about Adam Sandler's character being diagnosed with a terminal illness left me neither shaken nor stirred. It might be that he is too abrasive to elicit sympathy, or, more likely, his wealth, which the movie showcases gregariously, makes it impossible for the audience to really pity him, no matter how much his character is desensitized to how awesome it is to be rich and famous. His wealth and his fame - and the women that wealth and fame get him - form the basis of Seth Rogin's character's admiration of him, which is sad, because I would hope that an aspiring stand-up would seek to emulate a comic celebrity because that celebrity is particularly funny, not because he has a big house, a fancy pool, and extra televisions on the wall (BTW: Is this something that people are doing now? Are they putting three or more televisions up on their living room walls? This movie is the first time I've seen this phenomenon, except, of course, for Back to the Future 2). Still, despite whatever down side there might be, being rich and famous is just great. I don't care what this movie says.The part of the plot that matters is the relationship between Adam Sandler's character and Leslie Mann's character. Long story short, they used to be in love, but, after he cheated on her, they went their separate ways, and she went on to get married and have a couple of kids (played by Apatow's and Mann's real-life daughters). Early on, we learn that they are still in love. Thus, the real tension of the movie is whether or not these two characters will end up together - that is, whether or not Mann will leave her husband for Sandler. - spoiler alert - She doesn't, and I'm glad she doesn't. The main message of the movie, then, is that past relationships, while they are important in shaping our present selves, and while they are sometimes heart-warming to reminisce about, must remain in the past. There is no future for past relationships, and that is how it should be.The other nice aspect of the plot is the gradual growth of Seth Rogin's character, as he loses his golly-gee-shucks admiration for Sandler's character, and he eventually learns to see people as people and to stop feeling starstruck, subservient, and second class.Compare this film to the documentary The Comedians of Comedy, and you'll see clearly that Rogin and Sandler are merely actors. The movie suffers from the same problem that undid Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Namely, you can't use exposition to tell an audience that someone is funny; the person has to actually be funny.Lastly, the movie is quite long. I've not checked to see exactly how long it is, but it definitely feels long. I credit the movie's length to something I call "The Rowling Effect": when an author is just starting out he or she is heavily edited, but, after the author gets famous, he or she can go on and on interminably (that's why the Harry Potter books got progressively longer and longer). Similarly, now that Judd Apatow is well-known, there's nothing to stop him from cramming everything into a movie that he wants to cram into it.