First things first: Judd Apatow's "Funny People" is funny. It's funny because it makes you laugh a lot (and that's something you're always expecting from Apatow), it's funny because it's truly about people that are funny, and it embraces that quality. Taking its three main characters, the result is someone that's funny because he's done things over the years that generate an effect on the audience who see him as someone hilarious; someone that's funny because the first impression he gives is not funny at all so he makes you laugh, but he can truly make you laugh because he writes good jokes; and someone that's funny because in her generally conflictive attitude and her constant mood changes, she appears as someone funny, but as in strange or weird.
The problem that I have when a movie done by Apatow is merely funny, as this one is, is that at this point of his career, I'm expecting more than 'just funny'. I have a right to expect that because of two reasons: I've seen it work and I've appreciated it in his previous films as a writer/director, "The 40 year old virgin" and "Knocked Up", and he's made it more than clear that he wants his audience to receive a bit more than a few laughs.
That bit more has taken the form of things like the "Apatow syndrome", which is a particular way of depicting men in films, and particularly friendship. The bond that super-comedian George Simmons, once he finds out he's dying, develops with Ira Wright, at first an assistant and joke writer that progressively transforms into a friend, is the most complex display of the syndrome yet. It's an idea worth exploring, in form, space and time. Another element of Apatow signature is the role of women, transforming men completely and almost opening their eyes into a new world that might not be better than the one they're stuck in but it's worth exploring. Think of Apatow's previous work, and about what Alison and Trish do with Ben and Andy's lives, respectively. Then again, the role that Laura has played (there's an important presence of the past in this movie) or plays in George's life is less clear. It's another idea worth exploring in form, space and especially in time.
You see, Judd Apatow's main characters evolve movie after movie. Not as in they become better men, but as in they stand in places of more experience in their own movie time, which for us viewers is a time that establishes distance between the movies. George Simmons, protagonist of "Funny People", in this chronology, is the most evolved specimen. Andy was a virgin, lacking in romantic and even friendship experience; Ben was more covered in the friendship department, and though not a winner in the romantic side (Apatow characters will never entirely be), capable of spending a night with a beautiful girl, getting her pregnant and assuming the responsibility. George is beyond all that: he's had love and lost love, the same with friendship, and he might not even make the comparison because he's a superstar. Andy and Ben were ordinary workingmen. It takes an intelligent director to give the role of George Simmons to Adam Sandler.
The first thing we might think is that there has been a removal and that the 'Apatow syndrome' is now located only in Ira Wright, whose best friends are played by Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman, so it couldn't get more Apatow than that. But we're wrong, because Ira and these guys are more than workingmen. They have aspirations, they want to be stars, they want to be comedians and they live with that everyday. It also takes an intelligent director to take an actor he trusts in and change him completely from one film to another. Seth Rogen's Ira Wright loses not only the weight and stupidity of Ben Stone; what also disappears is the lack of ambition. Ira wants to make it, and even when he knows he's not the best, he fights for it, even if it takes betraying his friends.
That's why there's no removal. The environment has changed. In Hollywood, George Simmons encounters Ray Romano, Eminem and James Taylor among others, but he still is the most evolved Apatow being. All alone in a big mansion, about to die, he has to re-connect. This re-connection is, in "Funny People", the 'extra' thing of an Apatow movie: a careful dramatic development that has to complement the comedy, sometimes surpassing it because it's excessive but never being out of place, because it has to do with the characters.
Well, this 'extra' doesn't function here. Maybe this was too personal for Apatow: we can see that the environment is the one he's lived in and it's no minor fact that this is his longest piece to date. Maybe he had more to say and he tried to make it clear in less time; or maybe his combination of elements wasn't planned correctly this time. The things I've always found inspiring and mentioned as distinctive like the movie references or the posters hanging in the wall are excessively used here: that particular characteristic looses its charm.
The same goes for the characters in general. Eric Bana's appearance is funny but it messes with the natural order of the characters; of Apatow characters in general and of the characters in this movie, precisely because it's not natural. And yes, of course it's nice to see Apatow's wife playing an important character again...And his little girls. He gets the best out of them. What is not nice is to not identify with their tenderness, to not feel their happiness and their pain...Or George's for that matter, or Ira's. I can't pretend that there was something where nothing happened.
The problem that I have when a movie done by Apatow is merely funny, as this one is, is that at this point of his career, I'm expecting more than 'just funny'. I have a right to expect that because of two reasons: I've seen it work and I've appreciated it in his previous films as a writer/director, "The 40 year old virgin" and "Knocked Up", and he's made it more than clear that he wants his audience to receive a bit more than a few laughs.
That bit more has taken the form of things like the "Apatow syndrome", which is a particular way of depicting men in films, and particularly friendship. The bond that super-comedian George Simmons, once he finds out he's dying, develops with Ira Wright, at first an assistant and joke writer that progressively transforms into a friend, is the most complex display of the syndrome yet. It's an idea worth exploring, in form, space and time. Another element of Apatow signature is the role of women, transforming men completely and almost opening their eyes into a new world that might not be better than the one they're stuck in but it's worth exploring. Think of Apatow's previous work, and about what Alison and Trish do with Ben and Andy's lives, respectively. Then again, the role that Laura has played (there's an important presence of the past in this movie) or plays in George's life is less clear. It's another idea worth exploring in form, space and especially in time.
You see, Judd Apatow's main characters evolve movie after movie. Not as in they become better men, but as in they stand in places of more experience in their own movie time, which for us viewers is a time that establishes distance between the movies. George Simmons, protagonist of "Funny People", in this chronology, is the most evolved specimen. Andy was a virgin, lacking in romantic and even friendship experience; Ben was more covered in the friendship department, and though not a winner in the romantic side (Apatow characters will never entirely be), capable of spending a night with a beautiful girl, getting her pregnant and assuming the responsibility. George is beyond all that: he's had love and lost love, the same with friendship, and he might not even make the comparison because he's a superstar. Andy and Ben were ordinary workingmen. It takes an intelligent director to give the role of George Simmons to Adam Sandler.
The first thing we might think is that there has been a removal and that the 'Apatow syndrome' is now located only in Ira Wright, whose best friends are played by Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman, so it couldn't get more Apatow than that. But we're wrong, because Ira and these guys are more than workingmen. They have aspirations, they want to be stars, they want to be comedians and they live with that everyday. It also takes an intelligent director to take an actor he trusts in and change him completely from one film to another. Seth Rogen's Ira Wright loses not only the weight and stupidity of Ben Stone; what also disappears is the lack of ambition. Ira wants to make it, and even when he knows he's not the best, he fights for it, even if it takes betraying his friends.
That's why there's no removal. The environment has changed. In Hollywood, George Simmons encounters Ray Romano, Eminem and James Taylor among others, but he still is the most evolved Apatow being. All alone in a big mansion, about to die, he has to re-connect. This re-connection is, in "Funny People", the 'extra' thing of an Apatow movie: a careful dramatic development that has to complement the comedy, sometimes surpassing it because it's excessive but never being out of place, because it has to do with the characters.
Well, this 'extra' doesn't function here. Maybe this was too personal for Apatow: we can see that the environment is the one he's lived in and it's no minor fact that this is his longest piece to date. Maybe he had more to say and he tried to make it clear in less time; or maybe his combination of elements wasn't planned correctly this time. The things I've always found inspiring and mentioned as distinctive like the movie references or the posters hanging in the wall are excessively used here: that particular characteristic looses its charm.
The same goes for the characters in general. Eric Bana's appearance is funny but it messes with the natural order of the characters; of Apatow characters in general and of the characters in this movie, precisely because it's not natural. And yes, of course it's nice to see Apatow's wife playing an important character again...And his little girls. He gets the best out of them. What is not nice is to not identify with their tenderness, to not feel their happiness and their pain...Or George's for that matter, or Ira's. I can't pretend that there was something where nothing happened.