I liked
Funny People well enough, but it's not a great movie in my book. Judd tried to get into the James L. Brooks dramady territory, and while it's more successful than Brooks' last film (that also starred Adam Sandler)
Spanglish, it's not up to the gold standard of
Broadcast News or
Terms of Endearment. I really don't have much use for Sandler as a performer or actor, but he was fine playing a mirror version of himself, and the scenes about celebrity and comedy seem authentic enough, which isn't surprising given old friend Sandler and Apatow's backgrounds in the business and where they are today. I did appreciate that the script didn't take the easy or clichéd way out of the situations it put itself into, but other than not going for the obvious I didn't find anything especially unique or emotional in its place.
And yes, Yoda, much of the movie is autobiographical for Apatow. I don't think he was ever unfaithful to his wife nor do I think he pines for "the one" that got away so it's not strictly autobiographical, and Sandler too is happily married with a family so it's not for him either in that way. But in the sense of the road not taken and what they've observed various friends and acquaintances in the business do when they got a bit of fame, in that sense I'm sure they know what they're talking about. Once you've seen firsthand what more money than you can ever spend and women throwing themselves at you looks like it's easy enough to project themselves into a character who never outgrew that phase and the kind of event it would take to rock them out of that world.
Originally Posted by Yoda
This really looked and felt (and was titled) like a film that was going to delve into why some people feel compelled to take up comedy, and the sorts of things that make it a pathological need rather than just a random choice of profession. I don't know that perfectly well-adjusted people would put themselves through this. This is not a knock on them, because I don't think the kinds of things that would drive someone to pursue comedy as a living are usually the kinds of things they can control. I also don't want to generalize too much here, but I do think there's a pattern.
Yes, there is a pattern, but that itself is a cliché: the sad clown, the idea that you have to be fu*ked up in some way to be a comedian. Go and rent Tony Richardson's
The Entertainer (1960) with Laurence Oliver, for example. I'm glad Apatow left this as a subtext instead of making it an explicit thing. The movie
Punchline (1988) already took a crack at that in regards to stand-up comedians, and while it's an OK movie I think it fails to really capture the zeitgeist of the comedy club boom of that era in a meaningful or lasting way. Hanks and Sally Field are good enough and they do delve a bit in what it takes to write a routine or joke for the stage, but by in large a little too melodramatic and too "clean" at the same time, a problem with tone as much as script. I think Apatow's
Funny People is more successful in regards to a behind the scenes look at that world because it takes most of what
Punchline was examining for granted.
Funny People is a good movie, but despite the fact that it was designed to be more emotional and less laugh-out-loud funny than his previous two films I didn't find myself anywhere near as emotionally involved with these characters as the ones in
Knocked-Up or
The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It actually reminds me of my reaction to Cameron Crowe's
Almost Famous. That one was explicitly autobiographical, but while I found the details of the world were remarkably perfect the love story, which he had done so perfectly in
Say Anything... and his previous films, was the weakest part of
Almost Famous for me.
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