Maybe it was the explosion. Not long before the end of the 11 AM showing of This Is 40, there was an explosion. It seemed very close-by, not, as I knew it must be, a long block away. Just like all subway-station blasts, it stopped on a dime, without any receding rumbling, but it was still somewhat unsettling, because I was more than two storeys down in the ground. The upshot was that I came out of Judd Apatow’s new movie thinking that it was not really very funny (despite the many laughs), and actually somewhat depressing.

Maybe it was the movie’s Los Angeles location. Los Angeles is usually a depressing setting, which makes film noir work so well there. (Also satire, particularly of “the industry.”) The fact that it looks like a paradise — but it doesn’t look like a paradise. It’s just a big suburb with palm trees, its housing manicured rather than neat. Somehow Los Angeles embodies a ghost of the snowbound landscapes from which Midwesterners escaped to it. That some people think it’s a paradise — now, that’s depressing.  

The movie begins with a sex-in-the-shower scene that goes awry when the man (Paul Rudd) sings the praises of Viagra. The woman (Leslie Mann) exits hurriedly (and discreetly), on principle. Why should her husband have to take Viagra? Can she arouse him only with the aid of a pill? I laughed, because the scene was framed for laughter, but I don’t think I’d laugh the second time I saw it. This Is 40 is a film about people who fight about everything except what’s important. What’s important is occasionally mentioned but it is rarely discussed and never effectively dealt with. What’s discussed instead is feeling good, and how difficult it is to feel good when being irritated by other people.

If I continue this discussion, I’ll probably convey the impression that I didn’t enjoy This Is 40 and thought that it was a lousy movie. Not so! This Is 40 is very well made (despite a certain lack of narrative focus), and the cast is great. Ms Mann and her daughters are funny in many ways, and they make a perfect foil to Paul Rudd’s likeable dickhead. John Lithgow and Albert Brooks powerfully play unlovable dads. But the further I got from the screening, the happier I was that I don’t know people like Mr Apatow’s characters. And there is something about Melissa McCarthy’s fascinating brutality that suffocates any ongoing drama.

***

As the holiday week chugs to a close, I wonder how I shall ever restore the daily routine that depends, first of all, on rising early, or early-ish. Before nine-thirty, certainly. I have hated getting up lately, almost every morning. Watching movies after dinner is a problem, and last night I watched a second movie, in two parts, first, while making dinner, and then, later, emptying the dishwasher. That second movie was City Island, one of the more authentic movies about life in this city even though it is an exuberant comedy with a farcical climax. The after-dinner movie was Love Actually, a Christmas number with ten million stars, many of whom, such as Keira Knightley, were not all that well-known when the film came out, nine years ago. Kathleen had somehow managed not to see it; she especially enjoyed Emma Thompson’s performance. (I’m sure that I did so in the course of tracking the films of one of its many notable names — Bill Nighy, very likely.) What few tears I had left after The Family Stone were flushed out by its two or three happy endings. I was in no shape for bed — I rarely am, after a movie. Late to bed, late to rise… no comment.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
This entry was posted on Friday, December 28th, 2012 at 2:45 pm.