Product: Funny People
Rating: 4.0
Funny People
Judd Apatow has made a name for himself in producing and directing amazingly hilarious, raunchy R rated comedies. While he's had a long career which includes the well reviewed and prematurely cancelled TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, his name really came into prominence when he produced the movie that launched the leading man career of Will Ferrell in the 70's newscaster spoof Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. In 2005 he directed his first feature film launching the movie career of Steve Carrell with the movie 40 Year Old Virgin, a movie I count as my favorite comedy, and list in my top 10 favorite movies of all town. After that he launched Seth Rogen's career in the superb Knocked Up, Jonah Hill's career with Superbad, and Jason Segel's career with Forgetting Sarah Marshall my second favorite movie in the bunch. With Funny People, Apatow adds Adam Sandler, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bana, and even Eminem to the mix. The question is, how did it stand up?Funny People is the story of George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a superstar comedic actor with many hits under his belt, and is beloved superficially by almost everyone. In reality he is a troubled, loathsome, lonely man who doesn't allow anyone to get to close, and those that do he drives away. After being diagnosed with an advanced blood disease similar to leukemia, George realizes just how lonely he is and decides to start doing stand up again. Enter in Ira Wright (Seth Rogen). Ira is a struggling stand up comic, who does stand up for free at improv nights, works at a deli, and lives on the sofa sleeper of fellow comics Mark Taylor Jackson (Jason Schwartzman, also doing musical duties behind the scenes for the movie) and Leo Koenig (Jonah Hill). After seeing Ira's stand up one night, George Simmons hires him as his writer and personal assistant, aka his best friend. Through out the course of the movie we see George Simmons trying to reach humanity again. As he comes to the realization that he's dying he reaches out to friends and family he hasn't been in contact with for years, and tries to reclaim love with his former fiancee Laura (Leslie Mann, Judd Apatow's wife) who is now married to a philandering Aussie named Clarke (Eric Bana), and now has two children Mable and Ingrid (Maude and Iris Apatow, Leslie Mann and Judd Apatow's real life children).It should really be said that Funny People is not as completely a comedy in the way that 40 Year Old Virgin or Knocked Up are comedies. Funny People is a much more naked, emotional affair than either of the previous movies. That's not to say that the film is not funny, it has more than it's fair share of comedy, bringing in many superstar comedians including Dave Attell, Ray Romano, Sarah Silverman, Norm MacDonald, Andy Dick, etc. There's also some great stand up to be seen from the likes of Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Aubrey Plaza (who steals nearly every scene she's in as Daisy), and of course Adam Sandler. Seeing the inner workings of comics and funny people trying to break their way into the business, and their interactions with each other gives our characters and the writer a lot of comedic material to mine, and they mine it well.Comedy is not at the forefront of the this movie though. In reality, the movie is about finding life in the midst of death, and to that end the writing and the acting is superb. As a dying comedian trying to find his humanity, Adam Sandler finds a funny and serious streak unlike just about anything we've seen him in. While we've seen him do serious before in Punch Drunk Love, Reign Over Me, and Spanglish this is arguably the best performance he's given so far, mixing in the old Adam Sandler we've seen in Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison with a much older and mature Sandler. Seth Rogen, also does a much different role than that of the pot smoking slacker schlub than what we're used to from him. Playing a confidant, assistant, and writer for Simmons, Rogen plays Simmons last link to humanity and his conscience. Seeing both of these characters somewhat out of their element and playing the characters amazingly well is a very nice change of pace.For all it's strengths, there is one major weakness: running time. At 146 minutes, Funny People can drag a little bit in the more serious dramatic areas, especially when you really want more of the strong comedic material you've seen throughout the movie. In all honesty though, I couldn't tell you what should have been cut to make it shorter. The arc of George Simmons really needed the running time to help flesh out the characters. All in all, I would say that Funny People is a great movie definitely worth seeing, if not in the theater, definitely on DVD where you can get up and move around when you feel like it.4.5/5