Judd Apatow’s Best and Worst Movie

Funny People Review

A fairly drastic departure for Judd Apatow, Funny People is overlong, rambling, unfocused and also sometimes moving, thought-provoking and maybe even just a smidge deep.

Adam Sandler is actually quietly a very strong dramatic actor, a fact known to viewers of Punch-Drunk Love and Reign Over Me. Compared to those two movies this is sort of a walk in the park dramatic role.

Basically Sandler plays a variation on himself, a rich comic whose made it big doing silly blockbusters. His name is George Simmons and he’s dying.

For whatever reason, this spurs him to go back to standup comedy, and recruit a young comic named Ira (Seth Rogen) to write him jokes and basically be his friend.

From there the movie goes a lot of different places, all sort of musing on a life past by, and if we can ever really go back and fix mistakes we’ve made.

It’s probably at it’s strongest commenting on comics. I found particularly believable the scene where one character shares a story about his dead grandfather and is openly mocked by another. Because they’re both comics, I bought it. Anyone who hangs out with standup comedians a lot know they almost can’t stop joking, it’s like a permanent part of their thought process.

There are other neat little moments like that, but in a lot of ways you get the feeling this movie bit off more than it could chew. In the sprawling (like over 2 hours) quest to say a lot, the movie ends up not saying much about any one particular thing.

This lack of focus has been criticized mostly when the film spends a basically hour long third act shifting to Sandler trying to reunite with a lost flame (Leslie Mann). It’s  a fair critique, the movie does lose a lot of steam with the transition, and really feels like it’s starting over because of it.

It’s also not particularly funny, more so because it’s actually a drama with bits of comedy and not the other way around. Little moments of the drama really work, but the film remains too rooted in Apatow’s previous casual jokey style to connect as a total drama.

Bottom line, it’s okay. Big step down though, for Apatow.