Monday-shock! That's a new phrase I'm coining, to describe that feeling of waking up on a Monday and being like "holy $#%& kill me now, today is going to be harsh!"
Anyways, to help get me through my Monday-shock and hopefully yours, let's dive right into a movie review, because, man, I've got a lot to say about this one ...
FUNNY PEOPLE Review:
- I went into Funny People cautiously optimistic. Prior to seeing the movie, I had heard completely mixed reviews - from those calling it Judd Apatow's masterpiece to those bashing the movie as an over-long mess. I think that the true story lies somewhere in the middle. There are moments in Funny People that are hilarious, and moments that are vintage Apatow. There are moments that work as spot-on satire and moments that have the kind of painfully authentic yet unmistakably funny conversational dialogue that Apatow has become known for. At the same time, I don't think I was prepared for how bleakly depressing of a movie Funny People actually is, when all is said and done. And yeah, I knew full well that this was a movie about a comic star assessing his life after being diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. But the part I wasn't expecting was that the aforementioned illness wasn't even the most depressing part of the film. The fact is that Funny People paints a very dark, very cynical, almost weary picture of life in Hollywood. In and of itself, this isn't a bad thing. But the problem lies in the fact that Apatow seems to have lost perspective on this one. Whereas his previous movies have been defined by the heart and soul that lies beneath the profane comedy, Funny People feels oddly soulless. It feels like the rambling, messy, and somewhat embittered work of a man who's been beaten down by an adulthood spent in entertainment. This is like watching Judd losing his innocence on-screen, and it's unsettling. Mixed with a somewhat half-hearted attempt at the usual Apatow sense of sentimentality, the result is a movie that wins you over with its great little moments and comic asides, but turns you off with its often unappealing big-picture premise.
I think that this movie particularly affected me as someone who saw a lot of himself in Seth Rogen's character in the film, Ira Wright - a young, Jewish, slightly awkward stand-up comedian with big dreams and small funds. Ira works in a grocery store deli to make ends meat while doing small-time stand-up gigs on the side. Meanwhile, his two roommates are also making their bid for Hollywood stardom, with varying degrees of success. One, played by Jason Schwartzman, has found marginal fame as a star on a cheesy sitcom called "Yo, Teach." The other, played by Jonah Hill, is faring similarly to Ira, except that, thanks to wealthy parents, he doesn't have to worry about keeping a day job. The scenes involving the three roommates are all entertaining and are the bits that most call to mind the humor of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Except, as the movie rolls on, you start to realize something about Rogen's roommates - they are basically assholes. In a different Apatow movie, these guys might have been steadfast friends to Ira, but not this one. Here, you see the parallels between Ira and the man he will eventually go to work for - George Simmons, played by Adam Sandler. Simmons sees George do stand-up and decides to take him under his wing, sort of. The fact is that their relationship constantly tows the line between actual friendship and indentured servitude. Part of the point is that Simmons has no concept anymore of legitimate human interaction. He lives in a bubble of casual showbiz buddies, casual sex, casual drugs, and lots of faceless and nameless people who are servants, yes-men, and hired help. Not only that, but you see that the seeds are being planted for Ira to end up a lot like Simmons - to make fake Hollywood friends, to pursue fake Hollywood dreams, and to live a fake Hollywood life. Realistic? Maybe. Unsettling to watch for us young guys and gals in Hollywood looking to mix career aspirations with real friendships and well-rounded lives? You bet. When even Funny People's most likable and relatable character spends the movie teetering on the edge of the abyss, you know this isn't exactly going to be the feel-good movie of the year.
And yet, like I said, Apatow has always been known for the way he is able to infuse sentimentality and heart into movies where the premise wouldn't, at first glance, seem to allow for such things. In Funny People, however, the problem is that on some level we are supposed to empathize with Sandler's George Simmons, and yet, holy lord, the movie paints him as a borderline-psychotic asshole. I sort of assumed that Sandler would play a likable comedian who has lost his way, but at the least someone you could eventually root for. And yet, there's a moment very late in the movie where Simmons verbally assaults Ira that strips away whatever goodwill you've built up for him. On one hand, I suppose it's bold of Apatow to be so uncompromising with his characters. On the other hand, it makes the movie feel almost pointless - like you're trapped in these characters' self-made hell and can't get out. I guess you start to wonder if this is a movie or simply a bitter rant about how Hollywood can chew you up and spit you out.
Just for the record, I know that me being put off by a dark comedy might seem contradictory. After all, I've raved in recent months about the work of Jody Hill, like Observe And Report and the TV series Eastbound & Down. But while Hill's characters are very, very dark, they are also heroes in their own warped and twisted worlds, and you can't help but root for them after realizing that, hey, maybe these guys' are the real sane ones in an insane world. In Funny People, there's nothing surreal going on here. This is a slice-of-life movie through and through. And it's funny because some of the biggest laughs come from the bigger and broader moments, like the 90's-style "Yo, Teach" or Aziz Ansari as a douchey, Dane Cook-esque comedian - Raaaandyyyy.
With Ira and George, however, the humor is often so uncomfortable that you wonder how much of it is directly autobiographical. It's been said that Simmons is a commentary on what a guy like Sandler *could* have been if he had not been grounded by his wife and kids. But Simmons isn't just lonely or jaded or whatever. He's downright weird. He has spastic and violent mood swings. He yells at Ira and then desperately forces him to sit by his bedside and tell him embarrassing personal anecdotes before he drifts to sleep. In some ways, Sandler's character here is even more f'd up than the one he played in Punch Drunk Love. Except, whereas that movie took place in a surreal, warped version of reality, this character is very much set in the here and now.
Make no mistake, Sandler is in fine form here. His Simmons is funny, scary, depressing, and fascinating all at once. Even stranger, Simmons is basically an only-slightly altered stand-in for Sandler himself. The blend of fiction and reality makes the performance - and the movie -all the more unsettling. I mean, the film begins with real-life footage that a young Apatow shot of his then-roommate Sandler when the two were both young transplants to Hollywood, just starting out. And throughout the movie we see other real, archival footage of Sandler's early career. So it's hard not to watch Funny People and to see it as a somewhat biographical movie. Again, that's what makes it kind of creepy.
This unsettling feeling only magnifies when Leslie Mann enters the picture. Again, you can't help but be aware of the fact that she is Apatow's real-lefe wife, acting here alongside their real-life kids. Mann is very strong in her role here, but at the same time her whole quasi-love story with Sandler just seems off. Sandler calls Mann, his one-true-love-who-got-away, trying to reconnect, knowing that he may not have long to live. Their second courtship feels rushed - they meet once, and within minutes they are practically ready to elope. Later, Simmons and Ira visit Mann's No-Cal home and even more awkwardness ensues. For a while, the whole premise of Funny People shifts dramatically. It stops being a movie about stand-up comedy, and starts being a morality play. It asks: is it justifiable for Sandler's messed-up, semi-crazy character to break up a marriage and a family because he might still be in love with Mann's flighty former actress? In another movie, you might really root for Sandler, but here, when Sandler giddily coerces Mann into adulterous behavior, it just feels wrong and strange and somewhat emblematic of everything that's wrong with the movie.
In fact, the whole of Funny People has this strange and somewhat off-kilter moral compass that I'm not even sure it's self-aware of. All of the characters have this sense of self-entitlement that is at times disturbing, but there's also this air of melancholy because of just how screwed-up and soulless they all are.
The movie also suffers in that, as you can tell, there is way too much packed into the film, and the emotional core is therefore lost and muddled within the jumbled web of side characters and subplots. It's a movie that is trying to be too many things at once, and the bizarro romance between Mann and Sandler ultimately distracts from the best part of the movie - its satirical look at the world of stand-up comedy.
Personally, I'd recommend checking out Jerry Seinfeld's THE COMEDIAN to see a true-life, very insightful doc on the world of stand-up.
As it stands, Funny People does have a lot to like. There were many moments that made me smile and made me laugh. I really liked the movie when it kept things light and had the same kind of Apatow charm that has won me over in the past. Despite what others have said, the movie never felt long to me, just over-stuffed. But what's hard to convey is that a lot of the feelings I have about the film occurred to me as the credits began to roll. For much of the time spent actually watching the movie, I was solidly entertained. The cast here is top-notch, a lot of the jokes hit the mark, and there are a number of winning cameos from celebs and comedians to boot.
But honestly, this is both Apatow's most ambitious movie but also his messiest. Too many times, Apatow's own self-indulgent, semi-autobiographical voice conflicts with what the movie is trying to accomplish. Too many times, the movie comes off as a bleak and jaded rant on Hollywood-as-hell (all the while looking at the glamour and riches of Hollywood with a somewhat self-important gaze), and forgets that the main character arc here is actually supposed to be somewhat hopeful and redemptive. A brief couple of scenes at movie's end remind us that our characters might be on the up and up, but it's too little, too late. By that point, the semi-happy ending feels tacked on. I was too caught up in what seemed to be the movie's central message for it to really resonate - that being that if you want to make it in Hollywood, you have to do so at the expense of real friends, real life, and real happiness. Not something I agree with, and not something I found very appealling. It's too bad that this part of the film, the whole funny people-as-awful people thing, at times overshadowed so much of what worked in the movie.
My Grade: B
- And that's it for now. Stay tuned for a review of GI JOE.
No comments:
Post a Comment