"Forgetting Sarah Marshall", the latest movie from producer Judd Apatow ("Knocked Up", "Superbad") and his troupe of overgrown man-child actors, is being billed as a "romantic disaster movie."I'm not really sure that I'd heard of that genre before, but the flick certainly lived up to its billing.
Jason Segel ("Knocked Up", CBS's "How I Met Your Mother") stars as Peter Bretter, a composer for the TV show "Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime", who has been together with the show's star, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) for five years.
After being dumped during a memorable, humiliating and full frontal scene, Peter heads to Hawaii to try to ***SPOILER ALERT *** forget Sarah Marshall ***END OF SPOILER ALERT*** Of course, as (bad) luck would have it, Sarah is staying with her new man, rocker Aldous Snow (a scene-stealing Russell Brand) in the same hotel as Peter.
That's as far as I'll go because I don't want to give too much away. Still, this is a romantic comedy, so you can probably guess what happens. Fortunately, as is the case with previous Apatow productions, this rom-com stands out from other cookie-cutter entries in the genre.
One of my favorite aspects of the movie is that Segel (who also wrote the script) made it so we get a glimpse at character's point of view and perspective.
Of course, this starts with Segel himself, who is very funny playing a pretty average guy. Sure, he's got cool-geek tendencies (Peter wants to write a "Dracula" rock opera with puppets), but mostly he's playing a regular, underachieving guy who got crushed — he's not cartoonishly over-the-top/profane (Superbad) or naïve (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) or lazy (Knocked Up). Most importantly, according to my girl Erica, he acquitted himself quite nicely in the breakup scene, so I guess it wasn't that humiliating after all.
I also liked that the movie actually takes time to make us see why Sarah — who'd mostly been presented as a bland, superficial actress — broke up with Peter in the first place. We even get to see that Aldous, the man who came between Peter and Sarah, is actually pretty cool.
The only key role I felt was a bit underwritten was Mila Kunis' impossibly nice hotel employee Rachel, who helps Peter get over Sarah. Still, Kunis does a nice job in the role (basically the opposite of Sarah).
As is usually the case with romantic comedies, this one is littered with funny supporting players. Paul Rudd delivers as a constantly-stoned and forgetful surfing instructor. Jack McBrayer transplants his naïve "30 Rock" persona as a newlywed. Bill Hader gets some laughs as Peter's step-brother. Finally, I find that I can tolerate "Superbad"s Jonah Hill A LOT more in small doses — here, he's a waiter with a major crush on Aldous Snow.
The movie also throws in some semi-archaic touches (references to the "Buena Vista Social Club" and Billy Baldwin doing a David Caruso-in-CSI: Miami impression) that not everyone is going to get, those that DO get them feel a little better about themselves (sorry, people who don't get them).
The movie (like other Apatow productions) could probably be trimmed by 10 or 15 minutes, but I'll gladly take a slightly longer romantic comedy, I mean, romantic disaster movie with funny, more-realized characters. Especially when it's the funniest movie of the year.
"Forgetting Sarah Marshall"...A-
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