Funny People (2009)

When preparing to see a movie titled Funny People, one hopes there is truth in advertising and that the title isn’t overly optimistic. In this instance, the title is correct: there are a number of funny people in this film. Unfortunately, what it doesn’t have is a truly funny script.

This movie is part of Adam Sandler’s career phase where he attempts to be considered a “serious and respected actor” instead of being just a comic. Many comedians go through this phase: think Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society and Good Will Hunting, Jim Carrey in The Truman Show and Man On The Moon, and Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls. Sandler started this phase a few years ago with the awkward romance Punch-Drunk Love, and he continues that career arc here by basically playing himself. His character George Simmons is a popular stand-up comedian who has become wildly successful by starring in a number of cheesy-looking comedy movies, including “MerMan” (you can guess what that one’s about from the title) and a talking-baby flick with Sandler’s head digitally grafted onto a baby’s body, which looks creepier than anything shown in Tod Browning’s Freaks. Simmons finds out he has a potentially fatal illness, and this news plunges him into melancholy as he reflects on his life and achievements, which include a home filled with gardeners and servants but no friends, and ex-girlfriend Laura (Leslie Mann), “the love of his life” on whom he inexplicably cheated 12 years ago and still carries a torch for. Simmons tries to return to his roots with a surprise appearance at a comedy club, but the morose ramblings prompted by his diagnosis fail to generate audience response, forcing Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), the poor schlub who has to follow him on stage, to score laughs by making jokes about Simmons’s routine. Simmons takes a liking to the struggling young comedian, and hires him as a joke writer and personal assistant.

Ira’s new job impresses his two roommates. One is another struggling young stand-up, a more rotund version of Ira played by Jonah Hill, who is the most consistently funny person in Funny People. The other roommate is a pretentious young actor (Jason Schwartzman) who flaunts his paychecks from starring in a Saved By The Bell clone TV series that even kids think is dumb. He engages in a battle of adolescent cocksmanship with Ira over a drippy, humorless chick played by Aubrey Plaza, displaying not much more range here than she does as the drippy, humorless intern on Parks And Recreation. This romantic triangle is a weak subplot adding nothing to the film except to further illustrate Ira’s inability to get laid, which is not surprising when his best pick-up line is offering a ticket to a Wilco concert.

In fact, one of the co-stars of Funny People is Seth Rogen’s dick; it’s never shown on screen, but it’s mentioned and referred to so often (including a comment from James Taylor, no less) that it practically deserves its own screen credit. George Simmons seems nearly obsessed with it as he introduces Ira to his jet-setting world of fancy mansions, celebrity acquaintances, and fame groupies — and rips on Ira for failing to score with one of the latter. George wants to keep his illness a secret so he won’t be treated like he’s dying and already gone, yet he also wants to play his sympathy cards to their best advantage. So when later circumstances allow him to finally reconnect with that ex-girlfriend Laura, now living in Marin County with a largely absent husband (Eric Bana) and two precocious daughters (Iris and Maude Apatow, the director’s kids), he drags Ira along, and consequently drags the movie down.

Judd Apatow wrote and directed this way-too-long movie, and despite the presence of funny laugh lines throughout the film, none of them are especially memorable moments. Sandler gets several chances to emote and play serious drama, which is better than watching the funny-voiced chin acting, largely and thankfully absent here, that he built his career upon. Apatow fills the film with cameos by many other comedians as themselves (all lesser lights compared to superstar Sandler except for “TV stars” Paul Reiser and Ray Romano), and fills the backgrounds with photos of various comedy legends, as if the quantity of comedians represented must guarantee that big laughs are to come. But instead, there are awkward scenes like a poorly staged, worthless cameo from Eminem, an egregious product placement including the founder of a website I refuse to name here, and most of the second half of the film when Simmons rekindles his relationship with Laura. Leslie Mann, a.k.a. Mrs. Judd Apatow, was hilarious as the drunk driving chick who pukes on Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but here she’s not funny at all; her own daughters are playing her kids in the movie, so it’s no stretch for her to play their mother. The lengthy sequence with her loses what little momentum the movie had built up, and it takes Eric Bana’s arrival as the jealous husband to bring any energy to the proceedings.

At one point, Bana’s character mentions another comedy film, There’s Something About Mary, and I wished I was watching that movie again rather than this one. That movie, as well as The 40-Year-Old Virgin and the Apatow-cowritten Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, had an interesting premise, clever presentation, likable characters, and truly funny situations. Instead of crafting another contemporary comedy classic like those, with Funny People Judd Apatow has created a stumbling, clichéd, lazily written, emotionally manipulative, and ultimately forgettable comedy-drama. What could have been a humorous and touching tribute to George Carlin, Richard Pryor, and other recently deceased comedy legends, instead becomes another pathetic “sad clown” image, like a cheap black velvet painting.