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.jpg) The third film by Judd Apatow isn’t his best and is certainly his most self-indulgent. Apatow’s films have gone from just under two hours (“The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) to just over two hours (“Knocked Up”) to now, with “Funny People,” just shy of two and a half hours. I have no problem with long movies as long as they justify the added time, but “Funny People” doesn’t. It leads the film to feel more like Judd making a film to show off his friends and family than making a film to entertain the masses. Long passages go by without any jokes and when you name your film “Funny People,” that’s a problem.
Though it’s long and at times tiresome, “Funny People” is easily Apatow’s tightest ship. His two prior efforts had a “can do no wrong” feeling as Judd included endless scenes of his actors riffing and adlibbing jokes. For me, these scenes are often my favorite parts of his films, but he teeters on the edge of giving us too much of a good thing. In “Funny People,” Apatow cuts down on the riffing, making it almost non-existent. The entire film feels more scripted, which is a refreshing change of pace for Judd. The film actually made me long for more of the scenes where characters would just rip on each other, but those types of scenes are rare in this film. So, Judd has created a film that feels less like we are hanging out with friends and more like we’re watching a story.
Adam Sandler plays George Simmons, a movie star at the top of his game when he finds out he has a rare form of leukemia that chemotherapy and radiation would not respond to. Depressed, George decides to return to the world of stand-up comedy. He hires Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) who is an aspiring stand-up comedian, but he’s still very green and very bad on stage. Why George would hire Ira after hearing that particular set of jokes is a leap of faith the film makes you take, because Ira’s jokes seem to get a whole lot better after George hires him. Ira finds this to be great, because he’s currently living with two comedians who are far more successful (played by Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman) and he sees his job with George to be a fresh start.
It’s not long before George begins telling everyone about his condition and tries to reconnect with the one girl that got away. Leslie Mann plays Laura, George’s long lost love. Laura is now married and has two children (played by Mann and Apatow’s real-life children Maude and Iris). Laura is heartbroken to find out about George’s condition, but knows they can never really be together. Laura and George become friends, bringing Laura back into the world of stand-up comedy.
The film opens with archive footage of Sandler making prank calls when he was Apatow’s roommate. Hearing Judd’s laughter in the background made me wonder if this was going to be another Apatow film where I feel like he’s the only one laughing. Due to Judd’s tight reins on this script; it’s not. “Funny People” is at its best is when we see our characters on stage doing their acts. Rogen and Sandler are very good comedians, even when Sandler’s George is being depressed and self deprecating. When Apatow stays in the comedy world, the film is at its funniest. The stand-up acts and scenes of characters making fun of each others routines are among my favorite moments of the film.
Even Apatow’s love story works for a while. Sandler and Mann’s first scene together is really well directed and acted. Laura’s sadness upon learning of George’s illness and his regret mixes into a big ball of emotion during the scene. Mann and Sandler’s performance in this scene is superb. In a lot of ways, “Funny People” allows Sandler to play the two roles he’s very good at; the comedian and the sad introvert, but this film, like Apatow’s others, seems to go on for too long.
After a while, the film’s fabric begins to rip apart. Apatow’s film has this “look at all my friends” mentality which leads to cameo after cameo in the second act and it starts to get tiresome. When the first scene to make me laugh in a long time was a scene in which Eminem yells at Ray Romano, ending with a “I though everyone loved you, Ray” joke, I began to wonder what Apatow was trying to do with his film. Is he trying to tell a good story or is he trying to give his friends work?
The entire love story begins to fall apart in the third act, when the film, which was once a comedy, goes into deep dramatic territory. George becomes a egomaniac and the character that had built up so much goodwill with the audience begins to act in ways that make us despise him. Apatow has always written dramatic scenes, but each with a darkly comedic edge; not here. The characters go into self destruction mode and I didn’t find it fun to watch at all. And then the tension builds to a head after George doesn’t find Laura’s daughter singing a song from “Cats” to be tear-worthy. The whole thing becomes weird and disconnected from me.
And that’s the strange real-life versus fake-life line that “Funny People” walks. Our two romantic interests fight after a Judd Apatow shot home video doesn’t make one character cry. While Laura and Ira talk about how great the director’s daughter is a singing, I had the feeling that I was watching a really expensive, filmed version of a father showing pictures of his talented daughter to strangers. And that is how the entire film feels. It feels like Apatow is showing us pictures of his kids and friends while explaining to us that even clowns can be sad sometimes. The self-indulgence of “Funny People” makes the running time seem all that much longer.
There’s also a half-baked romance between Ira and Aubrey Plaza’s character Daisy, but with a lot of the side stories in “Funny People,” it’s all half-baked and done with little spark. The story is about George and Ira, until even that takes a back seat to the disconnected romance in the third act. The film forgets that what we came to see were funny people.
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