The Case for Diminishing Apatowic Returns

I went into Funny People a bit wary. I have not been a fan of Adam Sandler’s efforts for a while (and, if you take out the pairings with Drew Barrymore, I have not enjoyed his efforts for over a decade), and so I was betting on Seth Rogan to carry me through the movie should Adam let me down. But Rogan plays a very distant second fiddle to Sandler, and the movie follows (my perception of) Sandler’s career: starting on a high and descending into a mirthless mire by the end. Yeah, Funny People is really a movie of two halves: the first half, and then there’s the unfunny half. And unfortunately for the viewer (though Film3 did warn me beforehand), both halves add up to the running length of two movies.

In the first half, Sandler plays George Simmons, a stand up comic. Actually, almost everyone in the first half of the movie is a stand up comic, varying degrees of successful and varying degrees of funny. Some we are expected to laugh with; others we are expected to laugh at. Simmons is the big star bequeathing performing gems upon the comedy debutants, and finding in his rediscovery of his roots and his role as mentor both joy and a professional rejuvenation. All this is seen mainly through the eyes of Rogan’s character Ira Wright, and a lean Rogan provides the link between the superstar world and the existence of the ordinary(ish) pleb of his aspiring comedian and his show business friends.

And then, once Simmons has found himself, he decides to go and find love, and the focus shifts to Sandler. And the film nosedives. Comedy takes a back seat to a fairly dull re-finding love story. The performances are still all fairly good, with Eric Bana showing up to prove he is… well, a loud, strapping Australian. But it seems like the love story comes from a completely different movie, and not a very good one at that, while Rogan’s character is given either nothing or nothing sensible to do (what was he doing going to the airport? Really?). And by the time Wright does come back to centre stage, the scenes just feel token.

The laws of Roganomics dictate that the more Seth says and the less his eyebrows try to leap up above his hairline (which possibly could be a sign of him “acting”), the funnier he is, and the steeper my enjoyment trend line. Funny People follows these laws but in all the wrong ways, leading to a mini ecomedic crisis and short-changing the viewer – well me. There were some in my audience who laughed out loud, but only once or twice, and in 2.5 hours, that is not a good hit rate.

Verdict: The Judd Apatow line of comedy fashion is going out of style. As time goes by, bigger and more bloated vehicles provide fewer laughs for the audience, the film seeming more of an excuse to cater to the whims of those making the film, fulfilling some fantasies of people they would like to meet or acting range they would like to explore. One could call it experimental cinema, except the board of ethics thought this was a comedy. It tries, and for most of the first half, and parts of the second, it succeeds. But overall, Funny People is a lot less amusing than it could or should have been, and way too long. 4 funny bones out of 10.