Funny People

Writer-director Judd Apatow clearly drew on his own experiences for this story of a mega-successful but self-loathing comedian, George Simmons (Adam Sandler), who hires Ira (Seth Rogen), a newbie  on the lower rungs of the L.A. stand-up comedy scene as his P.A.  Ira is thrilled by the break but soon discovers that success may well be a poisoned chalice.

Funny People extends the reach of Apatow’s style-defining The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005) and its stablemate, Knocked Up (2006), in which the male characters are all dick-obsessed men-children (which gives rise to the best joke in the film) but who have to face the adult world.

For George Simmons it is brought about by the onset of a rare form of leukemia.  His impending demise causes him to reflect on his choices in life and particularly his broken marriage to Laura (Leslie Mann) who has re-married with a philandering Australian husband (Eric Bana) with whom she has two young children (Mann’s own daughters with Apatow). 

Part of the enjoyment of Funny People comes from the self-reflexity of the Simmons character. The film opens with home video footage (which was actually shot by Apatow, who was at the time Sandler’s room-mate) of the young pre-big-time Sandler making crank calls whilst Rogen and Jonah Hill are Apatow regulars. (Jason Schwartzman, who also co-wrote the music with Michael Andrews is better known as an alumnus of the Wes Anderson crowd).

Forbearing  the lame dick-jokes, Apatow’s script, with its foundational opposition between life and death raising the Seinfeldish stakes of “a show about nothing” cleverly frames the gag-fixated world of stand-up comedy and sets it within the chaos of real life.

In the lead role Sandler gives a strong, contained performance whilst Rogen brings his familiar goofy-style to his literal and metaphorical support role. Mann is also very good as the woman caught in a dilemma of her own. As her husband, Bana playing a none too flattering portrait of “an Australian”, is amusing with an exchange between him and Mann in which she makes fun of his accent being a hoot.

Apatow is becoming the John Hughes of millennial adult comedy and although it should have been shorter, particularly in the latter stages, Funny People is the best example yet of the form.

 

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