The print ad for Funny People shows Seth Rogen and Leslie Mann leaning affectionately on Adam Sandler’s shoulders, all of them sporting silly grins. The first time I saw the ad, it reminded me of another image, but I couldn’t quite place it.
Then I saw the movie, which deals with comics, relationships, adultery and self-absorbed neurotics confronting life-and-death illness.
And it hit me: Woody Allen’s Hannah And Her Sisters. Both movies are about funny people confronting mortality. But only one of them works.
It’s sort of fitting, actually. Funny People’s director, Judd Apatow, has emerged as his generation’s Woodman: Jewish, nebbishy, with early roots in stand-up, obsessed over failure with the opposite sex although he’s living out the ultimate revenge of the nerds fantasy with his hot leading lady. (In Apatow’s case, his wife, Mann in Allen’s case, Diane Keaton, Mia Farrow.)
Now after two hugely successful comedies (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up), Apatow has given us a self-indulgent whine about being taken seriously, about the tragic clown crying on the inside. Boo fuckin’ hoo.
Audiences responded with a tepid opening weekend. Bad word-of-mouth can only make the box office situation worse.
Allen made his own exercise in self-pity and why-do-people-think-I’m-only-funny? navel-gazing shortly after two of his most successful pictures, Annie Hall and Manhattan. It’s called Stardust Memories. Unlike Funny People, it wasn’t 146 minutes, but it was (and still is) still hard to sit through. It also tanked.
It took Allen another six years to deal with serious material in an entertaining, funny way in Hannah. He repeated the formula a few years later in Crimes And Misdemeanours.
Funny People isn’t a total waste. Jonah Hill steals a few scenes. Eric Bana delivers an energetic performance, complete with his natural Aussie accent. There are some amusing cameos by seasoned and up-and-coming comics.
But there’s a smugness to the film that’s captured in that grating poster. It’s saying: love me, laugh with me, take me seriously.
And then there’s the title. Don’t include the word “funny” unless it actually is. [rssbreak]
