The Apatow Family reunion must be a riot. A laugh riot, not like
a hockey riot or a Bieber-at-the-mall riot. Director Judd Apatow holds court at
the grill, spitting jokes over the hot dogs. His wife, and lovely actress,
Leslie Mann, sits in the shade telling all the other wives what Channing Tatum
smells like. The kids, Maude and Iris Apatow, ignore their cousins as they
tweet with Zooey Deschanel and that One Direction kid, the one who doesn’t own
a comb.
The point is here that this is one famous and likeable family,
which is why it’s perplexing that a film starring three quarters of them and
written, directed and produced by the remaining quarter falls so short on so
many levels. It’s a shame because I like these characters. I just didn’t really
like anyone else.
This is a sorta-sequel to Knocked
Up, in which a loser and a floozy find themselves parents-to-be after a one
night stand. The stars of that film bounced parenting advice off their married
friends, Pete and Debbie, who make it look easy but hide their fracturing
patience for each other amid their hectic daily routines. At one point in that
movie Pete says, “Marriage is like a tense, unfunny version of Everybody Loves Raymond, only it doesn’t
last 22 minutes … it lasts forever.”
Now here are Pete and Debbie with their own movie in This is 40, a tangential offshoot within
the Knocked Up universe. Like the
first movie, Pete and Debbie are played by Paul Rudd and Mann, and their snarky
affection is endearing and lovable, like when he farts in bed and blames it on
the mattress springs as she fans a pillow in his direction. Or when she has to
diagnose strange blemishes on his behind with one of those magnifying makeup
mirrors.
The film is a random mish-mash of events and drama, though it
starts out as just a sad portrait of the decaying spark that is their marriage.
He obsesses over his musical superiority — “It’s a seminal Pixies track!” —
while she rolls her eyes, and she harps on him for sneaking forbidden cupcakes
from his various hiding spots. The film cycles through the various family
routines — workout sessions, playdates, dinners, vacations, and household
discussions — all leading up to their shared birthday party, though Debbie
can’t bare reading 40 on a cake so she buys the 38 candle … again.
Some of this is charming and cute. It helps that Maude and Iris,
playing two precocious tweens, are vital electrons spinning around this nuclear
family. The film doesn’t neglect them, which is a commendable development when
other movies give the kids so little dialogue. Maude is going through an
obsession with TV’s Lost that can
only be described as rigorous — “My relationship with Lost is not your business; It’s extremely personal” — and Iris,
introverted and quiet, just craves attention from her big sister. They felt
like real sisters because they are, and I’m enjoying watching them grow up in
each new movie.
Comedy mogul Judd Apatow might be their father, but I doubt he
lets them watch this movie any time soon: the opening little number involves a
shower and some Viagra. The blue pills take Pete from “analog to digital” and
the scene ends with an unrepeatable line that any 40-year-old woman has said,
or thought, but one that only Leslie Mann can deliver with so much frustrated
conviction. It’s the film’s best scene and most honest piece of dialogue.
By about the middle, though, This
is 40 loses focus. Mostly it just introduces too many characters, migrating
all the stars to the back of the crowd. First there’s Pete’s father (Albert
Brooks), a lazy freeloader who feeds off his son’s miniscule profits from a
going-bust record company. Debbie’s father (John Lithgow) is a distant man
who’s asking for the check before the appetizers have arrived. Then there are
numerous friends, coworkers, workout buddies, relatives, hockey players and
burnouts, including British rock star Graham Parker playing himself as a
British burnout rock star — he is a good sport about it. He’s more overused
than even Sam Jones, aka Flash Gordon, was in the much funnier Ted from earlier this year.
Some of these little detours are funny — including Chris O’Dowd
and Girls’ Lena Dunham as
long-suffering music producers — though they often wear out their welcome. One
thread involving a bully at Maude’s school turns into an ad-libbing
free-for-all in a principal’s office. The scene is overbaked and smoldering,
yet there it is again in the credit outtakes just in case you wanted to hear
Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) tell a
character she was going to kick them with her “footbone” a couple more times.
This is 40 struggles to
find its thematic core, but it occasionally finds a close orbit. In one
unremarkable (albeit candid) scene, Pete disappears to the bathroom, where he
sits and plays iPad games. Debbie gets wise to his scheme and confronts him. “I
don’t smell poop,” she tells him standing at the door. “Because I flush as I
go,” he says. It’s funny, and gross, but there are elements of honesty and
truth to that joke. He retreats there to escape to a private time he’s not
allowed in any other room in the house. She resents that time he takes because
she assumes he doesn’t want to be with her. He, meanwhile, just wants to play
Scrabble uninterrupted. The scene is a terrific analogy for marriage and its
occasional claustrophobia, but the rest of the movie never hits, or even aims,
that high again.
And how could it in such a crowded room?
