My first review of Funny People:
"Imagine if F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was told by someone who thought dicks were hilarious. Pretty much what we have here."
First real comment about my review of Funny People:
"What?!"
Let me expand. Judd Apatow has been a popular director for quite sometime now for a couple reasons. One of them is that he's pretty much making films for the bro-mance demographic (i.e. People who find guy comedies funny. Being mostly men) and the other is because he puts a lot of big popular funny cute stars in his films (This goes out to the ladies who find Jason Swarzman, Paul Rudd, Steve Cartell and James Franco attractive).
Now, I don't like to generalize but the fact is I can in this situation. Judd Apatow has only made three films including Funny People (Knocked Up and 40-Year-Old Virgin being the other two) and all of his films are about guys being friends, realizing that friendship is great, conquering their problems with women. All of these films have big funny stars in them. So naturally people are starting to catch on to the Judd Apatow formula. So, what's a big shot to do?
His solution: Make a personal story with a lesson that relates to something he is going through right now. Brilliant. I love it. Let's start talking about it.
In a couple of interviews Judd Apatow has said that Funny People has two main influences.
1. His life.
2. "The Great Gatsby."
SAY WHAA!
Yes. The story arch of Funny People is pretty much F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" with comedians. Okay, sure, not the most original idea but it's the thought that counts. Judd said that he saw so much of himself in this book. He's been both the struggling comedian, and the cold-hearted rich writer who forgets that life is all about the connections that you make and not how successful you can get. Great. That's a terrific story. Sad thing is though; "The Great Gatsby" is a story that Judd Apatow has never told before. He's told these two stories:
1. Marriage is hard.
2. If you see a girl you like, don't be a pussy. Ask her out.
He's never told the "It's and empty existence at the top and you're better being unsuccessful with your friends at the bottom" story. That's more of a story you would expect P.T. Anderson or Stanley Kubrick to tell. So can he do it?
In a way. Sure. Actually...No.
Judd is so excited to tell us this story with actual depth and he has so much great material for it that it's a little bit of an overload. It's like if you wrote a paper about a subject you really liked in one day and then turned it in without reading it. It's gonna be full of information that wasn't needed and you might have rambled a bit just because you're excited that you get to talk about a favorite subject of yours.
But he does capture some key parts of the story that need telling. He captures the bitterness of the successful comedian George Simmons (Sandler) and he gives and insightful look at being a comedian in this day and age. He even makes the affair between George Simmons and Leslie Mann's character one of the most fascinating parts of the film. So those are great moments right there. However, Judd Apatow's style rears its ugly balding head when it really shouldn't, sometimes during the strongest moments of the film.
For those of you that haven't realized it, Judd Apatow loves to let his funny cast members improvise as much as possible. It's great sometimes. All of the cast members are incredibly witty, it's not like letting actors improvise is something that's never been done before and he's usually only done it for comedic reasons. But, Funny People isn't really the kind of movie where you can have dick jokes constantly fly across the room like a tennis match. The story is pretty serious even though it's about comedians. Sure, those numerous dick jokes have their place in the film, but it's like he couldn't get rid of all of the ones he wrote and he had to put them all somewhere. Like he had a whole storage facility of dick jokes and he had run out of room there so he put the huge pile of ones that wouldn't fit in the facility in this movie. Dick jokes are everywhere in the film when they're not needed. You know, I don't watch Sophie's Choice and after the child death scene and make a witty remark. No. It's a serious moment. So due to all of these cock one-liners the pacing of the film gets muddled as well as some characters (Simmon's character seems like a bi-polar cancer victim because of this. His character will be having the time of his life one moment and the next scene he'll be singing songs about death and bombing in front of crowds for being too depressing. No natural arch here) and the overall tone of the film will switch from comedy to drama randomly and as fast as you can say cock-smoker.
Also, he allows his actors to not only improvise with comedic dialogue they might have written on the set that day of filming or when they were high earlier, he lets them improvise dramatic lines too. Which, sadly, shouldn't be done with most of the actors in this film. Adam Sandler is the only exception strangely. Sandler has proven himself that he can be a serious actor when he needs to be but the same can't be said for Judd's wife Leslie Mann or Seth Rogan. All of their improvised dramatic dialogue comes across as awkward and stiff. This might be because they might not have had their A-Game for this movie or different reasons but sadly, the bottom lines are that some actors that play key roles hold back the film with not letting a serious moment be a serious and being awkward when they have to be serious.
To go back to the acting note, and I must bring light to this. Adam Sandler is the strongest actor here. The strongest. Which isn't surprising but it's not that he's the strongest actor in the film that's the part I want to talk about, he's the strongest actor BY FAR in the film. Sandler as usual brings his A-Game but Rogan is still trying to find himself as an actor and I don't know what is up with Leslie Mann. Rogan doesn't seem to have trouble with the aggression that is needed to play Simmon's assistant. Whenever Sandler gives Rogan shit, Rogan hits him back, usually hard. So their tension is great. It's just every other thing that is awkward. When they're getting along it doesn't really look like Rogan is enjoying himself even though he supposed to worship this guy. And when he's supposed to be impressed by all of the things that come with being rich, it all seems so unnatural. Leslie Mann's problem is mostly that she can't really play dramatic well. When push comes to shove her heart breaking decision face looks like a "you stood me up at the prom and I am mad at you!" face. Call me shallow for thinking that facial expressions are a big part of acting but it's hard to believe what she is saying when she doesn't look serious about it.
But I should talk about some of the great parts about Funny People before you think it's the worst film in the world.
Uhhh...
Hm.
It's really hilarious. All of the stand-up scenes are great and their jokes seem to make everyone laugh and even though a lot of dramatic moment get trampled on by inappropriate ad-libbing there are some moments that shine like a diamond.
But that's really it sadly.
Here we have a movie that feels bloated with too much dick joke material, has a bad case of the bad acting bug, and the only great attributes about it is that it's funny and when the ad-libs don't get in the way and the plot is great. (Actual film is completely different case)
I know Judd wants Funny People to be his strongest film and it could have been. This is a story that I wanted him to tell because it seems to personal but he just got lost in what he was trying to say.
This movie needed a good editor that isn't afraid to trim the fat of this movie that Judd Apatow finds so appealing.
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