"Did you listen to my demo?"
"Yeah, I was going to, but then I decided to keep on living my life instead."
Judd Apatow has of course been on a hot streak as a producer ever since Anchorman debuted in 2004, and particularly with a genre that he has mostly mastered now — the romantic-comedy as done from the perspective of the male. Despite the occasional commercial misstep (Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor immediately spring to mind), Judd has been consistently successful because he’s able to make the audience connect with the wacky characters who inhabit his movies by actually giving them human qualities instead of cartoon character personalities. Or at the very least, in ADDITION to the cartoon character personalities.
The problem with romantic comedies for the past, oh, 30 or 40 years or so, is that they’re made for women and generally have very little to offer to the men of the audience. Like really, who gives a good goddamn if suave ladies’ man Hugh Grant is unable to score the woman of his dreams? OK, I like Hugh, actually, let’s try another example. Matthew McConaughey has built a career out of playing douchebags who only the women in the audience have any vested interest in seeing get with the leading lady. That’s great for 50% of the population, but I have no desire to see this guy get the girl. That’s the brilliance behind Apatow’s formula in turning the rom-com on its head: Peter Bretter (played by Apatow alumnus Jason Segel) is a just a normal-looking guy who’s a big loser and happens to be dating an incredibly hot actress who is obviously way out of his league. Despite working as a composer on her hit show Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime he’s obviously not part of the Hollywood scene and he still buys his sweatpants from Costco like everyone else in the world. Then one day, she (not surprisingly) dumps him for a preening egomaniac rock star who is obviously more well-equipped to deal with her high-maintenance lifestyle than Peter is. Peter goes to Hawaii to forget about Sarah Marshall (hence the title) and not surprisingly, discovers that she is also there on vacation with new boyfriend Aldous Snow (British comedian Russell Brand, who steals every scene so thoroughly that they’re spinning him off into his own movie as I write this).
Now the easy way to go would to be make Snow into the devil and Sarah into a huge bitch, but this movie doesn’t take the easy way and that’s why it works so well. I can actually relate to losing a girlfriend to someone almost exactly like Snow (not as rich, obviously, but similar in personality and mannerism) and the thing that really got me (and gets Peter as well) is that clearly Snow is a cool guy who never really does anything with malice of forethought. He’s pretentious, yeah, but he’s well-meaning and seems perfectly willing to accept Peter as a friend without the slightest bit of hard feelings, despite Peter coming across as a stalker at the best of times. And yeah, Sarah was cheating on him, but as she explains to him during one of their few moments of honest conversation with each other, Peter wasn’t making any real effort to better his life and you can only stick by someone who’s unwilling to leave the couch for so long. Obviously this was a movie written by someone who has had the same conversation in real life, and that’s why despite all the shock-comedy moments and wacky situations, it’s very grounded in real characters who act like real people much of the time.
As usual with Apatow movies, much of the comic heavy-lifting is done by faithful Apatow minions Jonah Hill ("I just went from six to midnight") and Paul Rudd ("I wonder if the carpet matches her pubes?"), leaving the rest of the cast to fill in the emotional edges themselves. And they do it wonderfully, showing chemistry with each other that few movies in this genre ever display. Does anyone in real life actually buy Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as a couple together? However, Segel is not only believable with love interest Mila Kunis (acting as the calming presence to his manic desperation) but also would have been equally likely to end up back with Kristen Bell again had the script gone that way.
I should note that this one falls more into the "awkward humor" category, generating laughs from Peter’s problems relating to humanity, rather than the "big laugh from a wacky situation" type of humor derived in the Knocked Up/Superbad one-two combo from 2007, and as such some people might be disappointed with it. However, for those who have had their heart broken and didn’t know what to do about it (but not necessarily finding the answer in writing a Dracula musical), Forgetting Sarah Marshall will prove to be a very funny and very welcome answer to the rom-com crap pumped out by Hollywood, indeed. Easily one of my favorite movies of the year and one that I found several things to relate to with. (Rating: ****1/2)
Audio and Video
As usual in the high-def era, this is an excellent transfer by Universal, featuring no errors that I could see (aside from a GIANT layer change at the one hour mark) and all the bright colors of the Hawaiian setting rendered in fine form. Audio is also good, although it’s a mainly a dialogue movie so not much outside of the center channel gets any kind of workout. Ambient sounds pop up in the surrounds and sound impressive, and the surfing and musical sequences both jump across the speakers, so it works when it needs to. (Ratings: Video ****, Audio ***1/2)
Bonus Features
As usual with the Apatow crew, the disc is loaded with extra stuff and a great commentary. But first, let me get off my chest another beef with the movie studios, as they’ve taken to releasing "3 disc special editions" comprised of two discs of actual content and a third disc containing the "digital copy" of the movie, which is a load of crap. Better to put another hundred million discs of worthless plastic into the environment instead of just taking the copy protection off the movie so people can view their legally purchased films in the format they want, I guess. OK, rant over.
Anyway, as noted this is an absolutely packed set otherwise, featuring a great commentary track from pretty much everyone involved in the movie and having lots of fun with it. The first disc alone also features…
– 18 minutes of deleted scenes, many of which are REALLY funny and could have easily slid into the movie, like Aldous and Sarah fighting about a broken lamp.
– The "Line-O-Rama" extra with alternate takes of different lines, showing everyone improvising like crazy. Brand’s rant about being stung by wasps is another one worthy of inclusion in the movie.
– A gag reel.
– The full video for "We’ve Got To Do Something", which god help me is actually a catchy song that I’d listen to on my MP3 player.
– The table read for Peter’s "Dracula Lament" song, showing that he really can play the piano.
– "A Taste For Love", which is a quick featurette talking about Segel wrote the Dracula musical long before this movie and then worked it into the script.
– The unedited footage of the video chats between Peter and his brother.
– The trailer, of course.
That would be enough in most cases, but there’s ANOTHER disc as well. The second disc produces…
– MORE deleted scenes
– An alternate version of Peter singing "Dracula’s Lament" to Sarah
– A deleted scene with the Dracula puppets acting out the initial breakup scene.
– "Sex-O-Rama": A montage of extended sex scenes. How much footage did they SHOOT for this movie?
– "Drunk-O-Rama": A montage of takes of Peter sitting in the bar and ordering crazy drinks.
– A featurette about Russell Brand and his turn as Aldous Snow.
– A segment with Aldous Snow on a children’s show that goes horribly.
– Alternate versions of the Crime Scene cutaways, plus alternate versions of Sarah’s new show coming to NBC.
– Plus auditions, video diaries, and a 15-minute Cinemax special about the movie.
Whew. Definitely everything you could possibly need to know about the movie and then some. (Rating: *****)
Final Thoughts:
The ultimate compromise of raunchy comedy and chick flick, it works spectacularly well on both levels and is one of the funniest movies of the year to boot. Highly recommended.
