Funny People could have been a great 90-minute movie; unfortunately it tries to force two separate narratives together, and overloads the audience with too many subplots and cameo appearances.
Written by Ben Salter
Written & directed by Judd Apatow, and staring Adam Sandler with Seth Rogan sounds like recipe for success. Apatow’s latest offering was always going to struggle to live up to the high expectations set by his previous work. The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up are great examples of the perfect balance between comedy and drama, but is has Judd nailed three from three with Funny People?
Funny People follows celebrity George Simmons (Adam Sandler) who decided to leave the big screen and head back to his stand-up roots when he is diagnosed with a terminal form of leukaemia. Given an 8% chance of survival, the comedic legend decides to tell nobody. He begins to realise how much he hates his life, full of meaningless sex and movies he only completed for the paycheck, which becomes obvious in his dark and disturbed stage performances. It’s here that he meets struggling comedian Ira Wright (Seth Rogan), who he hires to write jokes and become his assistant. Against the odds, however, George soon learns that experimental medicine has been successful, and that no traces of the disease can be found in his blood.
This is only half the story, as George goes on a mission to win back his estranged lover (played by Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) who is now married to an Australian businessman (Eric Bana) with two kids (played by Apatow’s real children). It’s a shame, because an interesting story about selling out to show business, and recapturing the initial excitement through helping a struggling youth was developing nicely, and all of a sudden is taken away.
The biggest problem with Funny People is that it takes a perfectly good 70-minute movie, and traps it into 140 minutes that’ll have you watching the clock. The first half, which dealt with George’s disease and Ira’s coming of age as a comedian, could have made a fantastic hour-and-a-half film. Instead, however, we’re left with an awkward love triangle that feels like a separate story all together. Apatow almost let’s go of a perfectly good narrative, and starts heading in another direction prematurely, a direction that the audience doesn’t want to go in.
The comedic drama is a difficult hybrid to master, which makes Apatow’s feat of pulling it off twice in a row, with The 40-year-old Virgin and Knocked Up, even more impressive. In Funny People the characters just aren’t as likable, they don’t develop as well (or at all really) and we’re left with a little bit of everything, rather than something solid. The film is full of cameos, including Ray Romano and Eminem, and what I assume to be in-jokes between the creators (Seth Rogan’s weight loss is referenced many times). Combined with the two separate narratives it starts to become too much to keep track of. There’s too much to follow and nothing is explained as well as it should be. George deciding to call Ira after seeing one set - which creators the most important relationship of the film - is weak at best. You can’t help but feel that Funny People would have been much better off exploring the beginning more, and ending with George’s miraculous recovery.
That isn’t to say Funny People is a terrible movie. The star-studded cast keep the humour levels up, and offer a chuckle to the end. Rogan and mini-me, or Jonah Hill, have a great on screen chemistry, which Sandler fits into nicely. The jokes are well executed, although, expect an abundance of sex and penis related material. The performance by Sandler is noble, and is only going to strengthen his reputation as a dramatic performer, something he is only now becoming known for. Rogan is reliable as always, but appears to be a little out of place at times. Similarly, Mann doesn’t quite reach the same heights that she did in Knocked Up. It probably doesn’t help that a majority of the plot involving her character is useless, but she seems to switch between her husband and George and back again with ease, and limited emotion.
The Final Verdict
Funny People doesn’t reach the same heights as Apatow’s 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, but its talented cast present an enjoyable experience, at least for the first half. Funny People could have been a great 90-minute movie; unfortunately it tries to force two separate narratives together, and overloads the audience with too many subplots and cameo appearances. On the flip side the humour’s written well enough to keep you chuckling throughout, even if the story itself doesn’t live up to expectations.
(3/5 Stars - 6.5/10)
Submitted by ICC_06
21/09/2009
5
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More Info:
Funny People - 2-Disc Laugh-Out-Loud Edition
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