Slashing The Seats

Billed as a move into serious drama for SuperBad man Judd Apatow, Funny People is a step towards a more mature film-making style but is let down by a jumbled finale. Early on, there’s still a sense of his light-hearted style flowing through this, allying it more closely with whimsical series like Northern Exposure or 30 Something than any other, weightier dramas.

Following the nose-diving creativity of a jaded comic (Adam Sandler), stricken with cancer, the narrative deals in themes like love and loneliness, old age and death, so it’s by no means another dick n’ fart jokes outing for the Director, but it contains enough bite to keep it wryly amusing. Sandler in particular is clearly happy to poke fun at himself, his character giving up edgy kudos to star in high concept fluff (Mer-Man! being a particular highlight).

It’s heartfelt and honest, Apatow seemingly digging into the more melancholy aspects of his life when scripting, but there’s an unfortunate tendency to wallow in sentiment at work, with loose editing and an indulgent streak a mile wide, causing scenes-and the movie as a whole- to stick around far longer than necessary.

The development is nicely handled, Sandler’s character George returns to stand-up as a cry for help, and ends up dying on stage until he hires struggling comic Ira (Seth Rogan) to write the gags. Their lives quickly become entwined as Ira begins to crave the fame George offers, hoping it will take him away from his downbeat lifestyle, watching his roommates becoming more successful than himself.

The denouement is interesting; George’s illness turns out to be not so lethal after all and leads him to selfishly try to win back a lost love and showing that he’s not reformed – just someone driven to desperation by the thought of death.

Unfortunately the third act bears little or no relation to what’s gone before. Ira’s storyline is seemingly dropped, his troublesome love life is resolved in under a minute and the remaining space is filled out with Apatow’s home videos and too many shots of his kids. It’s a nose-dive into mawkish sentiment and a cop-out, robbing what could have been a poignant, pointed film of any real drama.

A decent attempt to move in a more mature direction, but the over-stuffed celebrity cameos and constructed Hollywood on display here see the film flounder, and the syrupy sentiment ultimately undoes a solid build up. It’s a fine experiment, but one that doesn’t come off, undermined by character’s who are all too unrelatable.

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