Funny People
for language and crude sexual humor throughout, and some sexuality.
Reviewed by: Daniel Thompson
CONTRIBUTOR
| Moral Rating: | Extremely Offensive |
| Moviemaking Quality: |
|
| Primary Audience: | Adults |
| Genre: | Comedy Drama |
| Length: | 2 hr. 16 min. |
| Year of Release: | 2009 |
| USA Release: |
July 31, 2009 (wide—3,000 theaters) DVD: November 24, 2009 |
Death in the Bible
NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES—Who is the being of light encountered in near-death experiences? Answer
Where did cancer come from? Answer
How did bad things come about? Answer
Why does God allow innocent people to suffer? Answer
What about the issue of suffering? Doesn’t this prove that there is no God and that we are on our own? Answer
Does God feel our pain? Answer
What kind of world would you create? Answer
| Featuring | Seth Rogen, Adam Sandler, Eric Bana, Leslie Mann, Ken Jeong, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Andy Dick, Sarah Silverman, Norm MacDonald, Jason Sandler, Maude Apatow, RZA, Aziz Ansari, Suzy Nakamura, Iris Apatow, Aubrey Plaza, Steve Bannos, Bo Burnham, Maria Bamford, Torsten Voges, Ezra “Buddha” Masters, Brad Grunberg, Jane Le, George Coe, Samantha Quan, Dave Attell, Davon McDonald, Susan Krebs, Elaine Kao, Mandi Kreisher, Laivan Greene, Ca'Shawn Sims, Nicole Mandich, Calvin Sykes, Nydia McFadden, Nick Dash, Rick Shapiro, Arshad Aslam, Nicol Paone, Brian Lally, Sammy Jack, Harris Wittels, Eleanor Zee |
| Director |
Judd Apatow |
| Producer | Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Relativity Media, Apatow Productions, Madison 23, Happy Madison Productions, Judd Apatow, Andrew J. Cohen, Norman Durance, Jack Giarraputo, Evan Goldberg, Barry Mendel, Brendan O'Brien, Seth Rogen, Clayton Townsend, Nicholas Weinstock, Lisa Yadavaia |
| Distributor |
Judd Apatow movies tend to be somewhat of a double-edged sword. For those unfamiliar with his work as a director, his two previous films include “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up.” Both of these films earn their “R” ratings with extreme language and sexual content, but they also carry messages that are hard to find in movies these days. From the theme of abstinence to the beauty and wonder of life through birth, it’s confounding to see such pure themes in films accompanied by unadulterated smut. With his third effort, “Funny People,” Apatow once again provides us with a mixed bag of a movie that contains enough extreme content to keep most discerning Christians away, but also a deep and powerful message about selfishness, relationships, and the finite nature of life itself.
The story centers around comedian/movie star George Simmons, played marvelously by Adam Sandler. George has everything a man could ever want: a huge house, tons of money, and people waiting on him hand and foot. George is diagnosed with a rare form of Lukemia, one that is almost undoubtedly fatal. He realizes through this revelation that while he has money, fame, and fortune, he has no one close to him, and thus he decides to keep his disease a secret. He befriends by chance an unknown comedian named Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), and hires him to be his assistant. A friendship buds between Ira and Georg, and they battle his disease together. Ira encourages George to reveal his disease to others, which forces George to reconnect with his family and his lost love from years past, who’s now married with kids. After doing this, much to his surprise, George finds out that he has beaten his disease, and the experimental medicine he’s been taking has cured him.
One would think that an experience such as this one would refocus George’s life. After staring certain death in the face and coming out of it unscathed, he would realize the importance of people, family, and the need for love in his life. That’s not the case. George easily falls back into the same traps of success and tries to use his new lease on life for personal gain. He’s even willing to break up a family, if it means getting his old girl back. It takes another loss in George’s life, along with some straight talk from his friend Ira, to help George see how his selfishness has grabbed hold of his life and kept him isolated from everyone who wanted to be a part of his life.
While the previous paragraphs may portray a deep and moving film, it is unfortunately only half of the story. As with his previous movies, Apatow decides that his story isn’t good enough on its own, but needs a steady stream of coarse language and sexual content to make it more realistic to the lifestyle of a comedian. While I appreciate this improvisational style of comedy, the material on display here makes “Funny People” completely inappropriate, as well as inaccessible for most all audiences.
It really is a shame, too, because a clean version of this film looks a lot like the parable of the rich fool from Luke 12:13-21, except with redemption. It’s not a major transformation, but the film ends with a completely selfless act on the part of George Simmons. Just like the man from the parable who builds bigger store houses for his crops and goods, George Simmons was a man who had stocked up on money, cars, and material possessions only to finally realize their worthlessness. A small selfless act symbolizes a big life change for George. But this massive message is buried beneath a mountain of garbage, and there’s not much funny about that.
Violence: Minor / Profanity: Extreme / Sex/Nudity: Extreme
See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.
In the end, Adam Sandler’s character was left with the realization that in fact his life was utterly meaningless. I thought the end of the movie was very important. Unable to successfully move forward, he moved towards what was safe and comfortable, his ex-girlfriend. While it was painful to watch, they both discovered that they could not resurrect the past. Her line was powerful when she said “I have a husband and a family” and chooses to stay with them. I work as a counselor and have watched so many couples walk away from their spouses and their children. I wish they could all watch this movie and find the courage to say the same thing.
I also appreciated Rogan’s character’s line, which was something like “it seems to me like your happiness might damage this family”. So for me, ultimately, I appreciated the movie’s message. Even though the movie was filled with crude humor, it’s message on some level was Biblical. That being said, there are about 1000 penis jokes. Oh to be exaggerating. Almost ALL of the comedy in the movie is blue. It just got to be ridiculous. It’s rated R and it is by no means a tame R. So keep that in mind if you are going to watch it. It is a movie geared towards adults.
One additional note of caution. The movie didn’t offend me, but the trailers totally did! There was some trailer for a trashy unrated American Pie movie that had full frontal nudity, women kissing, you name it. I was stunned. We skipped straight to the menu so who knows what else was coming. But just so you know, if you rent it, you might want to skip straight to the main menu.
Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4
Because they were stand up comedians, there were jokes. The jokes were mainly about sex and were very offensive and quite frankly not even funny. In fact, not much of the movie was funny at all. We stayed for about an hour of the movie, and it still hadn’t gotten to much of a point about the disease or the ex-girlfriend. We got up and walked out of the theater right after Adam Sandlers character had sex with two girls in the same night. There was full frontal nudity with the first girl, and we had time to look away with the second. That’s when we left. I was very disappointed in Adam Sandler (especially after watching him in “Bedtime Stories”). Needless to say, this was NOT a good date movie, or a good movie period. It ruined our night.
Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 2½
Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 2
I am a huge Adam Sandler fan; however, I must say that this movie was not only a total and complete disappointment, it was disgusting. I am by no means a prude with respect to vulgar language, but this movie was a gratuitous diatribe of vulgarity from start to finish. I hung out with a fairly loose and rough crowd in my younger days and we didn’t use 10% of the vulgarity this film felt necessary to get its “message” across. I’m still trying to figure out what the message was. BTW, what movie were you guys watching?
Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: ½
Back to the movie. It has an okay plot, nothing special, typical Apatow concept (struggling man decides he wants to find love but has a hard time doing it). It started out well, with Simmons inviting Ira to tag along and write jokes, ha ha ha funny funny. Ira’s roommates on that TV show called Yo Teach were very funny as well. However, about midway through the movie, ***SPOILER*** Sandler’s character is cured of his disease and then the movie turns in to a horrendously boring drama. It was really annoying and uninteresting and it drug on for another hour. This movie was longer than LOTR, I mean good grief. If I wanted to see a good story, I would’ve seen Seven Pounds or something. But I wanted to see a comedy, not an annoying halfway funny piece of garbage that trys to convey a positive message through all of its filth. Pass.
Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 3
Moral rating: Average / Moviemaking quality: 4½
Yes, this movie has many funny lines in it, but it is a very serious film. It portrays the life of a successful comedian George Simmons (Adam Sandler), who has all that money can buy but is still a miserable man. Then he learns that he is sick and will likely die. He takes struggling comic Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) under his wing, and they form a relationship that grows deeper than that of an employer and employee. This is the film in which Judd Apatow reveals his true colors. You see, Judd Apatow may make comedic films, but in all of them there is a strong undercurrent of pessimism, offset by the acceptance of the fact that suffering is a part of life and that one must learn from it. This is very much present in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Knocked Up”—both present main characters that are, in fact, pretty pathetic main characters. A 40-year-old who has never had a meaningful relationship in his life? An unemployed stoner who impregnates a random lady he meets at the club? However, funny those movies were, they present two protagonists in pessimistic life situations.
But in “Funny People” it really hits hard because Judd Apatow refuses to let the comedy mask it. In this film, George Simmons is truly a miserable man, and we see it. The third act of the movie (which less discerning viewers called unnecessary, but which was entirely necessary) involves George meeting up with his ex-fiancee and trying to start a new relationship with her, despite that she’s married. This is just as potent as the first 2/3 of the film, and it has many wonderful lessons to learn from it. They are very serious lessons, ones that many people don’t go to films to learn, but they are important ones. Also, this movie’s ending isn’t sunshine and roses like Apatow’s other two directorial films. But the characters learn a whole lot and become better and relatively happier people because of it.
It is 146 minutes long, but it never feels too long. I wouldn’t want a single minute of this film cut. I have a bone to pick with movie audiences, and it involves Adam Sandler. Why is it that everyone goes to see him in his aggressively stupid comedies and family films, but whenever he does a serious role, nobody shows up? He gave an Oscar-worthy performance in “Reign Over Me” (admittedly, the rest of the film wasn’t Oscar-worthy), and nobody saw it. He gave another great performance in “Punch-Drunk Love,” but it remained in the arthouse circuit. And then he makes “Funny People” and everyone says how awful the movie was because it was serious, and the movie barely manages to make a third of the receipts that “Knocked Up” did.
I have to say this: Adam Sandler is a wonderful actor in serious roles. He is a HORRIBLE actor in comedy roles! Please see his serious roles and forget tripe like “Click” and “Bedtime Stories” and “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.” Potentially objectionable content in “Funny People”: the same as in Judd Apatow’s other films. Lots of swearing, lots of sexual humor/content.
Others have listed it on this very page, and I can’t remember it all right now. But if you are not offended by Apatow’s other films, PLEASE watch “Funny People” with an open mind and expect a serious film (I think most people that didn’t like “Funny People” had skewed expectations). You will love it.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 5