I Love You, Man

Despite how I may act in real life, I try not to be pretentious or condescending when it comes to my writing, but I’m going to open by taking a page out of my sister’s book, which involves being the most pretentious sounding writer on the planet. Since really coming onto the scene a few years back with The 40 Year Old Virgin, the Apatow gang has consistently put out hilarious movies. Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall are two of the best comedies I have ever seen, and I ranked FSM as the best non-nominated movie of last year (Really Academy? No Best Song love for “Dracula’s Lament”). Both movies have a huge fan base, but I’d say that most of those fans don’t get what makes those movies so good. (Is there anything worse than saying that someone didn’t get something? Maybe if someone asks you if you like a band and you say “well, I like their early stuff”. Aside from that, no, nothing more pretentious) The reason that KU and FSM are such great movies is not because of weed jokes, or gross out gags, or even any of the jokes in general but because there is good story telling, good filmmaking, and good characters around all of the jokes. I feel kind of stupid saying that a movie that involves a full frontal break-up scene is smart, but compare it to Step Brothers orPineapple Express (one of 2008’s worst films I might add), and you’ll see why. So, my biggest question going into I Love You, Man was “am I going to get a well-crafted comedy with good characters or am I going to get a series of jokes strung together by nothing?” I won’t go as far to say they were strung together by nothing, but it was certainly not the former.

The movie centers around Paul Rudd’s recently engaged character and his quest to find a best man for his wedding. Rudd is a great comedic actor, and was one of the most underrated parts of both KU and FSM, but he was not given a chance to really shine with the material. The first 20 minutes of the movie is basically an inversion of common romantic comedy tropes, as we watch Rudd go on a series of man-dates trying to find a friend. We are shown how socially inept he is because he does a series of bad impressions or says stupid things. Rudd can do a great “aww-shucks” guy (ie Role Models) but he also has that smart-ass attitude which suits him perfect. In ILYM, he seems to be attempting his best impression of Ginnifer Goodwin from He’s Just Not That Into You, and as with his character in the movie, it gets old fast and it’s not very good. There’s only so much ad-libbing you can watch of a guy putting his foot in his mouth before it’s no longer believable, but that’s the stereotype that is Rudd’s character. He’s that guy who never tries anything, and is afraid, and doesn’t like to talk. We’ve seen it a hundred times before, usually played by a girl in a rom-com. I wonder if someone’s going to teach this character how to truly live?

That leads into the other main character, and other brutal stereotype, which is Jason Segal’s Sydney Fife. Segal is probably my favorite comedic actor right now, and it kills me to say this, but he was not very good. Don’t get me wrong, he delivers laughs as well as anyone in the film but it’s usually when the real Segal sneaks in, and it’s not just Sydney Fife. Segal is the exact opposite to Rudd in this film, because in this bromantic comedy, that’s the type of people who end up together. Segal doesn’t care what people think, he lives in the moment, and is in touch with his animal side. I mean, come on, just look at some of his outfits. Ugg boots, a scarf, and a sport coat! All while walking his dog who he doesn’t clean up after! Wow, he must be a rebel.

The real reason that this movie is nothing more than a series of laughs is because there is nothing for the audience to connect with and absolutely no depth to anyone in the film. We know Rudd sells real estate and is getting married, but we don’t know what makes him tick. Same with Segal. Compare that to FSM, which I’m only doing because some critics and fans have said the movies are comprable. In FSM, we see all the highs and lows of this one section of Peter Bretter’s life. We see those characters form relationships and lose relationships and they all feel like real people. All of the characters inILYM are stereotypes (the guy with no confidence, the rebel, the girlfriend, the married friend who always talks about how she hates being married, the desperate single friend, embaressing parents, Lou Ferrigno) and the only relationship we see is the friendship between Segal and Rudd which seems to be based on an appreciation of farts and nicknames. I can list a number of facts about either of the multi-layered female leads from FSM, but the only things I could tell you about Zooey (this film’s female) is that she owns a shop. I don’t know what she sells.

Since this movie tries to play itself as a romantic comedy of sorts, I’ll take a second to critique it as one and I say that it does not earn it’s “I love you” moment. Since it’s the title of the film, you know it’s coming at some point, but when it does happen, it doesn’t feel natural and is followed up with a bunch of jokes. That same idea was already done better in Clerks II and although a joke shortly follows it, the emotion between the characters feels real, and lingers longer than the words do.

Before I conclude, I do have to touch on the film’s positive, because it does have them. After the first 20 minutes, I did laugh a lot, but most of those laughs came out of natural dialogue, and not the big set jokes that everyone else in the audience seemed to be laughing at. Jon Favreau was by far the funniest character in the film, and also the most real character, as the asshole husband of Zooey’s friend. There are times when Segal and Rudd have the dynamic and it delivers comedy, but I really can’t help but wonder if the movie would have benifitted from switching the leads. Segal can do loveable loser better than anyone I’ve ever seen and Rudd can do carefree smart-ass.

I’m glad I saw this movie, and I think anyone who’s a fan of all the other Apatow gang movies will as well, just lower your expectations. I laughed a good deal, but making people laugh doesn’t make it a good movie, just like how startling people doesn’t make a good horror film. Hell, I even laughed during Sexdrive and that movie was horrible. I want to care about the characters. Scratch that. I want to forgot that they are characters. I want to view what happens to see them as people over the course of two hours. If all you want to do is make people laugh by stringing together a series of jokes, go make webisodes.