Death by Penis Jokes!
The third movie from Writer/Director/Producer Judd Apatow is “Funny People,” starring Adam Sandler as a rich and famous comedian who has just received news from his doctor that he has a terminal illness, a newly thinned Seth Rogen as an up and coming stand up comic that Sandler hires as his assistant, and Leslie Mann as Sandler’s “one who got away.” Rounding out a strong supporting cast are Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman as Rogen’s fellow standup comic roommates, Eric Bana as the Mann’s Aussie husband, and Aubrey Plaza as Rogen’s love interest. There are also an impressive number of cameos by other comics playing themselves like Andy Dick, Paul Reiser, Norm MacDonald, Dave Attell, and Sarah Silverman. Inexplicably Marshall Mathers (Eminem) also shows in one scene where he impressively rants about the annoyances that come with being a celebrity and tells an eavesdropping Ray Romano to go “Go F*** Himself.” As in ‘Knocked Up,’ Apatow’s own daughters play the children. Both of them do a good job of acting like they are Leslie Mann’s (who is Apatow’s wife) actual children.
The title notwithstanding, this movie is not a comedy. It is a drama that happens to be about comedians. Since comedians have a tendency to draw on their lives’ tragedies to produce humor, this movie has many jokes in it. But the jokes in this movie don’t work like the jokes in a regular comedy. In a regular comedy the jokes would work for the purpose of making the tragedy somehow okay by various techniques. Perhaps the best example of a joke making DEATH okay is King Arthur’s fight with the Black Knight in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” A more modern example is South Park’s Kenny being murdered in almost every single episode for several seasons. These jokes take the big topic of DEATH and belittle it by absurdly suggesting that a) it doesn’t hurt (Tis’ but a flesh wound!) and b) it isn’t necessarily terminal (OMG they killed Kenny…Again!). In this movie, jokes are made about death, but they aren’t successful in belittling it. The story wants us to take George Simmons (Sandler) terminal illness seriously. There is one scene where this is especially telling. Ira Wright (Rogen) has brought upon himself to make George an itunes list of reflective songs to help him cope with the illness. Simmons asks to hear some of them and jokes about how hokey and phony the first two are. Then Rogen puts one on that is undeniably moving. George finds his mind blanking on jokes, is reminded of why Ira made the list, and angrily berates him as he storms out of the room. Let the record show that Adam Sandler can be a nuanced actor when he feels like it.
I would compare the experience of watching this movie to the experience of watching Scorsese’s “Casino.” Let me explain myself. I could tell the movie had top-notch directing, editing, casting, acting, and writing. The creators knew the material inside and out. The stand up routines that were meant to be funny were actually funny. The pathos made sense. Technically speaking, everything seemed to be fine about this movie. The problem is that “Funny People” is an especially long movie about essentially miserable characters. George Simmons is an isolated and alienated comedian who lives alone in a huge house that seems to be useful only for attracting groupies for one night stands. He has to pay Ira to be his assistant and confidante. He constantly berates him about his last name and private parts. For the whole movie it seems that George is not learning any lessons from his illness. His first act after learning he is may be well is to get back the woman that ‘got away’ i.e. he cheated on her and she left. He does this by attempting to breakup a troubled marriage. That guy can be quite a vicious clown. It simply isn’t easy to feel sorry for a rich and famous dude who lives in a mansion and treats other people like shit.
Seth Rogen also plays against his usual “Seth Rogen” oafish confident type. Having lost a lot of weight, his character Ira Wright seems a whole ten years younger than his usual fat self. He plays the guy young, starstruck, and way over his head. If there is an arc to this movie than it is in this character because he seems to be the only person who changes any. He goes from idolizing George Simmons, to doubting him, to finally willing to throw away any perks he could have gotten career wise just to tell the guy off. It is probably a shame that the movie focused on George Simmons so much because the heart of this story is in the coming-of-age tale of Ira Wright. Seth Rogen may have struggled at the box office this year, but in consecutive movies he has acted against type in two very different roles and has performed admirably in both of them. (the other being ‘Observe and Report’)
Also worth a special mention is Aubrey Plaza who has very little screen time as a struggling fellow standup comic but gives the most memorable performance in the movie. She is introduced cynically enough. The Jason Schwartzman character, a successful comic with his own TV show, brings her home and gives Ira ten days to ask her out or he will sleep with her. Three weeks later, after Ira has only gotten a tentative date set up with her to see a Wilco concert, Schwartzman sleeps with her. Ira doesn’t get mad at Schwartzman (because hey, he said he would give him ten days and ended up giving him twenty one.). He instead gets mad at Aubrey. Here is where the movie makes an interesting choice. Instead of simply using the scene to allow the audience to get vicarious revenge on groupies who sleep too willingly with stars, the movie gives the woman an impressive and ultimately sad retort, and Aubrey knocks the scene out of the park. What we come to understand is that two fundamentally good people who may have had a chance of being together, but feel that they have to compromise themselves because they are bottom feeders in a business that seems to arbitrarily pull some people up and keep others down. It is such a sad scene. Aubrey’s performance is, in my opinion, good enough for a Supporting Actress Nomination. Sometimes one scene is enough.
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