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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed and Meandering Yet Still a Worthwhile Look Inside a Stand-Up Comic's Mind, November 26, 2009
The psyche of the stand-up comedian is the subject of Judd Apatow's third and most ambitious directorial effort, but the elliptical, rather skewed characters that inhabit this serious-minded 2009 comedy obscure the personal revelations that he ironically attempts to mine. In certain ways, it's a dramatically audacious film, yet in others, Apatow comes back to the comfortably off-kilter humor of his previous ensemble efforts, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Sometimes the balance feels very off here, primarily because the protagonist is so hard to read from the outside. It was inevitable that the director cast his former roommate Adam Sandler as George Simmons, a comic who has become a major movie star based on the type of juvenilia he constantly ridicules. Sandler accurately captures both the demented comedy mind and the innate cruelty that keeps everyone at arm's length. It's a tricky part that has quite a few autobiographical elements for both director and star, but he plays it with melancholic deftness.
The meandering plot begins with George receiving bad news. He finds out he's dying of a rare blood disease and recognizes a need to reassess his priorities. George spots a struggling young comic, Ira Wright, at a local comedy club and hires him to write material and become his gopher. They bond quickly, and Ira becomes George's confidant, the only one who knows of his fatal diagnosis. Ira also has two roommates, another stand-up comic and an actor who has already caught his break starring as a teacher in a high school-set sitcom. Both become envious of Ira's budding relationship with George. Meanwhile, an old flame reenters George's life, Laura, a former actress who has turned into a suburbanite married to an Aussie exporter and raising two daughters in Marin County. Sparks are rekindled, and relationships start to get messy all around. As both writer and director, Apatow handles the situations dexterously but excessively. The film runs on far too long at a marathon 153 minutes and then simply trails off.
Newly trimmed down, Apatow protégé Seth Rogen plays his familiar dweebish persona as Ira, although he brings more depth to his submissive character with each humiliating act. Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife, has been promoted to leading lady this time as Laura, and she excels with her endearingly brittle style. In another justified act of nepotism, the director recruited their children to play the two precocious daughters. Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman play the roommates with their usual deadpan aplomb. The film's biggest surprise is the usually dour Eric Bana ( Munich) lightening up quite a bit as Laura's suspicious husband. Cameos from well-known comics (Ray Romano, Andy Dick, Paul Reiser, Sarah Silverman, etc.) and even comic turns from the likes of Eminem and James Taylor are sprinkled throughout to give the film an air of Hollywood-style realism. The esteemed cinematographer Janusz Kaminski ( Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List) provides the film a bright, sharp look throughout.
The two-disc 2009 DVD set smacks of overkill, but there are highlights to consider, chief among them the amusing commentary from Apatow, Sandler, and Rogen, in which they hilariously separate fact from fiction. The first disc also contains a four-minute gag reel. Disc Two contains 21 minutes of deleted scenes; six extended and alternate scenes; another gag reel; and a line-o-rama, a standard extra on Apatow's DVDs where the actors riff on the same lines for maximum comic effect. A lengthy, one-hour-plus video diary from the director is the centerpiece of Disc Two. Other featurettes center on Aziz Ansari's obnoxious stand-up comic; archival footage of Sandler and a thirteen-year-old Rogen; and a faux-documentary on George Simmons' film career. There are also music clips from Taylor, as well as Sandler performing with musician Jon Brion.
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31 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jake LaMotta would've made a hell of a comedian, November 1, 2009
Judd Apatow's Funny People is going to divide audiences (it certainly has divided critics). Those going in expecting a comedy along the lines of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up or any other of the films in the Apatow-verse will enjoy it but not love it. But that reaction may be more a product of the misdirection in the marketing of the film than anything else. Funny People is going for something more emotionally complex, and it succeeds on that count.
Without dwelling on plot, the film focuses, by and large, on the professional and personal lives of a group of comics and comic actors at various rungs of the show business ladder, from Adam Sandler's George Simmons, a hugely successful film comedy star who came out of the stand-up comedy world, to Seth Rogan's Ira Wright, a novice comic who is drawn into George's world, to Ira's friends, who are his roommates, who are his competitors.
The common thread running through these characters is anger and aggression, both explicit and sublimated. They steal jokes, jobs and women from each other (listed here in order of importance to the comics). The relationship between the performers and their audiences is similarly complicated (it's become a cliched observation that comics talk about "killing" the crowd).
Interestingly, although all the comedians share this anger and aggression, it's only those who ride those dark emotions into similarly dark comedy that have preserved their spark. The farther the comics stray from their anger, the worse their comedy - as evidenced by Sandler's character, who churns out family-friendly claptrap and co-star Jason Schwartzman's Yo, Teach!, a self-important sitcom (both brilliantly captured in clips woven into Funny People).
In Funny People, comedy is the universal language by which these emotionally-constricted characters communicate. There are awkward hugs and half-hearted attempts at compassion, but the most tender moment, coming late in the film, involves one character expressing love by writing jokes for another.
All this aside, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this is a funny, entertaining, emotionally-involving film. But that said, in an odd way, Funny People echoes Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Both films are about angry and aggressive people who channel those drives in socially acceptable ways. (Even more oddly, Billy Crystal's horrific and mawkish Mr. Saturday Night attempted more overtly to be the Raging Bull of comedy, and the less said about that effort the better.)
It wasn't until the ride home from the movie that it occurred to me that the "funny" in the title Funny People could have two meanings; there's funny ha-ha, and funny-odd. Here, the people are intentionally, compellingly both.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Flawed, but still a misunderstood and underappreciated film., June 30, 2010
The movie Funny People has baffled many of Sandler and Apatow's fans because it's very different from each man's respective work. But that doesn't mean that the film is weaker by any means. Yes, the film is flawed, it's too long, and draggy in parts. The last 45 to 60 minutes seem disjointed, compared to the first half of the film that focuses on Sandler's relationship with Ira, Seth Rogen's character.
But it's also a very clever blend of comedy and drama, which is very difficult to put together in most contemporary films. I really believe this is Sandler's best role, a mature man filled with loneliness and regret. It's an honest examination of how far a man will go to correct all of the mistakes he's made in his life.
Sandler is the star of the show, and anyone expecting the caricature that Dennis Dugan has created of Sandler should walk away. Sandler isn't doing Billy Madison, or Little Nicky here. This is Sandler playing a comedian with more depth.
The relationship between Sandler and Rogen is explored really well. Of course, I would rather see Apatow focus the whole movie on their relationship, rather than his relationship with Leslie Mann, but at least you can't fault Apatow for his ambitious vision.
The film bites off more than it can chew, but I really do believe it's one of the best comedies of the decade, and the highlight of Sandler's career.
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