Directed by Judd Apatow
(R)
**
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A comedian facing death takes on a protégé.
Judd Apatow’s Funny People is a “serious comedy,” said David Denby in The New Yorker, and Adam Sandler’s performance as a dissatisfied star of crummy Hollywood comedies is a “revelation.” Diagnosed with a terminal cancer, he hires an assistant (Seth Rogen), who helps him confront mortality. Mostly known until now as the master of the “bromance” genre, Apatow offers up his “richest, most complicated movie yet.” Funny People is his “stab at explaining jerks who make jokes,” said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. He wants to show that a man-child can grow up, but his film is a “long, sobering story without a punch line.” Though deeply personal, the film is “too self-absorbed to convey effectively the emotional complexity that Apatow has in mind.” Funny People would be more funny if it dug deeper into genuine human anguish, said Manohla Dargis in The New York Times. Apatow, though, seems to be a pretty happy guy—and why shouldn’t he be, as one of Hollywood’s most successful filmmakers? But “‘comedy is a man in trouble,’ not a man at peace with himself.”
