Weekly meditations from your humble messenger
Boys
Don't Cry
(Forgetting Sarah Marshall, 4/28/08)
By Nicholas Nicastro
So
when has there ever been a more confusing time to be a guy? To say the
masculine mystique lies in tatters is an understatement: at the same
time, people with penises are supposed be go—getters-but diplomatic;
they're supposed to bring home the bacon—but comfortable when she
makes more money; sensitive—but not emotional; chivalrous—but
not condescending; confident in bed, but not overly experienced; devoted
to parenthood—but increasingly superfluous in a world of sperm
donorship and snowflake babies; beneficiaries of eons of institutional
sexism, but not expected to feel OK with it. (Quick: name a few sitcoms,
talk shows, game shows and commercials where a dopey, ordinary, always-in-the-wrong
guy is matched with a beautiful, wise woman. Not hard, huh?) No wonder
the hero of Nicholas Stoller's Forgetting Sarah Marshall spends
much of his time weeping into a dog bowl full of Froot Loops.
Thanks mostly to writer-director-producer
Judd Apatow (The 40-Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) Hollywood
has been right in tune with the zeitgeist . Apatow, who has made
a mini-industry out of male abjectness, only has a producer credit on
Sarah Marshall , but his influence pervades it. The schlump this
time is Peter (Jason Segel), a stuck-in-a-rut TV composer who's dumped
by his beautiful, celebrity girlfriend Sarah (Kristen Bell). In a scene
more awkward than funny, Peter is naked when she breaks the bad news.
Segel, whose body type is suggestive of a starving walrus, is allowed
to let it all hang out—and we're not talking here just about the
appendage that makes clear his religion.
Things get more interesting when
the shattered Peter decides to take a vacation from his troubles. Not
quite by accident, he ends up at the same resort in Hawaii where Sarah
is shacked up with her new boyfriend, a vaguely dim rock star (Russell
Brand). What follows is not exactly hard to predict, but funny in that
alternately gentle and crude way Apatow has made his bread and butter
since his late (and much lamented) TV high school comedy Freaks and
Geeks (1999-2000). Like a tropical Midsummer Night's Dream,
the follies suggest love's perverse power to make a hell even out of
paradise.
The script, which was written by
Segel himself, isn't in a rush to redeem Peter from his funk. This is
a fairly risky move, given our societal discomfort with mopey, weepy
men (see paragraph 1). Guys taking their dates to see this movie should
at least learn something about their women. If, by the end, your partner
thinks Peter is more pathetic than loveable, you might want to rethink
quitting your day-job to write that screenplay.
Besides Segel, things are livened
up by a good supporting cast. As a hotel clerk who takes pity on Peter,
Ukrainian sylph Mila Kunis resembles a somewhat more cocoa-buttered
Ashley Judd, and is completely appealing. Apatow veterans Paul Rudd
(Knocked Up ), Bill Hader (Superbad ), Jack McBrayer (30
Rock) and Cornell's own Carlo Gallo (Undeclared) all do amusing
turns. Weirdest of all is Brand as Aldiss, a British ambi-sexual rock
star who seems meant to suggest an unholy cross between George Michael
and Marilyn Manson. As Sarah's feckless bedmate, he's the Dionysus essential
to the scene. In these times, however, Dionysus is a vegetarian, one
misstep away from rehab—and lonesome.
©2008 Nicholas Nicastro
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