Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Dude, this really isn't a good way
to get back at your ex-girlfriend.

Grade: B +
Director: Nick Stoller
Starring: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Bill Hader, and Paul Rudd
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour, 52 minutes

It is worth remembering that, long before the Judd Apatow comedic reign began, the Farrelly Brothers were once the toast of Tinseltown, working in scatology the way some artists work with watercolors. After defining (and influencing) film comedy for the decade of the 1990s with Dumb and Dumber, Me, Myself & Irene and There’s Something About Mary, the Farrellys’ began to wane the minute they forgot how to balance “shock and guffaw” with an undercurrent of sentimentality. Consequently, the directors of Kingpin began rolling one gutter ball after another.

This was the fate waiting to befall the House of Apatow due to brand oversaturation and its last three entrées: Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (which I liked but apparently the movie-going public did not), Superbad (which most fans and critics liked but I didn’t), and last month’s Drillbit Taylor (which no one liked). So, the rapid follow-up of Forgetting Sarah Marshall bears all the earmarks of yet another stab at recapturing fading glory.

Instead, the film has perhaps already earned distinction as the funniest movie of the year. The film acts as the third leg of Apatow’s unofficial relationship trilogy: The 40 Year Old Virgin undressed the ethos of adult sexuality; Knocked Up explored the travails of parenthood and, to a lesser degree, marriage; and Forgetting Sarah Marshall is, well, all about the break-up.

Specifically, it begins with the split between the titular famous actress (Kristen Bell) and her schlub of a boyfriend, Peter (Jason Segel). Sarah stars alongside Billy Baldwin in Crime Scene, a cheesy, archetypal TV crime show for which Peter composes the background music. Wallowing in self-pity, Peter jets off for a solo Hawaiian convalescence, unaware that Sarah and her new beau – a Euro-pop lothario named Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), leader of the band “Infant Sorrow” – are staying at the same island resort.

What sets apart Forgetting Sarah Marshall is not merely the wit of a screenplay also written by Segel, but also the effortless way it stirs together a gumbo of shocking visual gags, romance, and pop-culture touchstones – few films could effectively (and hilariously) reference The Lord of the Rings, the JFK assassination, and Flavor of Love.

Moreover, whereas the Farrelly Brothers’ rim shots involved testicles snagged in zippers, Apatow’s payoffs are more – dare I say – meaningful. A scene in which Peter’s erectile difficulty acts as coitus interruptus with Sarah is grounded in an uncomfortable truth to which many couples can uncomfortably relate. Peter’s dream of composing a puppet rock opera about Dracula is plainly played for laughs, but it is also framed as Peter’s particularized version of the latent, sometimes harebrained ambitions everyone secretly harbors.

I defy any red-blooded male to watch this film without being utterly captivated by Mila Kunis (That ‘70s Show), who is a revelation as the fetching Rachel, the hotel’s desk clerk and a mainland expatriate. There’s definitely something about Rachel, and her dalliance with Peter under Sarah’s nose lends the storyline an added dimension of sexual politics, not to mention a credible love interest.

Meanwhile, the regular cadre of Apatow favs, including Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, and Paul Rudd, round out a terrific supporting cast that is given plenty of screen-time but is never permitted to steal the show. That said, Jack McBrayer (30 Rock) walks away with plenty of scenes as a virgin newlywed whose wife’s wildcat bedroom propensities frighten his religious sensibilities. And, as a stoner surf instructor, Rudd reels off my new favorite mantra: "When life gives you lemons, just say 'F**k the lemons' and bail."

However, the real star is Segel, a Freaks and Geeks grad now seen in the TV series How I Met Your Mother. Segel bares all – physically and emotionally – and turns in a deceptively versatile performance that binds the film together, even through its somewhat draggy second half. Although the specter of a dopy every-dude dating a famous celebrity, getting comped the penthouse suite at a Hawaiian hotel, and then scoring the prettiest girl at the resort is more incredible than Knocked Up’s Seth Rogan impregnating a gorgeous E! television reporter, we somehow buy into the tableau. It’s all part of the Apatow era – enjoy it while you can.

Neil Morris

Drillbit Taylor

Freaks and Repeats

Grade: C –
Director: Steven Brill
Starring: Owen Wilson, Leslie Mann, Nate Hartley, Troy Gentile, David Dorfman, and Alex Frost
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 1 hour, 42 minutes

Ok, we get it – the teenage years were tough ones for Judd Apatow and the rest of his filmmaking cadre. As producer of Drillbit Taylor, Apatow works off an off-beat script cowritten by Seth Rogan and his Undeclared cohort Kristofor Brown to regurgitate their now-formulaic freaks & geeks coterie of a nebbish weakling (Nate Hartley), a McLovin-esque hyperdork (David Dorfman), and a rotund, foul-mouthed pal (Troy Gentile) who actually resembles a prepubescent Jonah Hill.

For a moment, set aside the rambling, rather inconsequential plot about a trio of hapless high school misfits who hire the titular homeless, Army deserter-cum-conman (Owen Wilson) as bodyguard to protect them against schoolyard bullies (led by Alex Frost) so merciless you begin to question the mental make-up of school administrators who allow the torment to continue unabated. The result is still a superbad, hit-or-miss mess that is only somewhat salvaged by Wilson’s trademark loopy adlibbing.

The rest of the would-be guffaws foisted by director Stephen Brill are endless, uninspired sight gags and high school freshmen who somehow reference 8 Mile and Blade Runner with equal aplomb. The female love interests range from Asian stereotypes (Valerie Tian, sporting the same specs from Juno) to oversexed loser-magnets (Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann, Knocked Up). Meanwhile, the rest of the women wandering through this comedic chasm are the perfunctory clueless moms and bleached-blond sun-worshipers whose only function is to pose for topless cell-phone pics with our preteens.

So bewildering is the story that by film’s end, destitute vets are fashioned into thieving villains and the presumptive crowd-pleasing climax is watching a thirty-something adult pummel an eighteen-year-old high schooler. Moreover, the vacuum at the film’s core is that its eponymous protagonist never rises above the level of an unabashed phony, fronting one false backstory after another. We never know who Drillbit Taylor really is – other than his Christian name is Bob – and as such never see the movie as anything other than another of Apatow and Co.’s cinematic exorcisms of adolescent angst.

Rarely has a movie’s advertising tagline been more apt: “You get what you pay for.”

Neil Morris