Rating: 8/10

Writer: Judd Apatow
Director: Judd Apatow
Cast: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bana
Studio: Universal

Judd Apatow is a solid director, writer, and producer, who also has a great eye for talent, discovering (or helping to discover) some of the biggest stars in comedy currently working today. Apatow has produced and worked on the script or story for many successful comedies in the last few years, and has also directed two feature-length films. Apatow’s first two directorial efforts, THE FORTY YEAR OLD VIRGIN and KNOCKED UP, are easily two of the funniest films to come out in the last decade, as well as being the best films that Apatow has ever been involved with.

Now, Judd Apatow is back in the director’s chair with FUNNY PEOPLE. A film about how comedians are just like everyone else; they may have a gift for making others laugh, but the are still just as confused, insecure, and fucked up as the rest of us, and probably even more so. It’s obvious that Apatow is doing a lot of reflecting with FUNNY PEOPLE, and it’s for the best, with his latest film having real emotional weight (KNOCKED UP has some ideas, but didn’t go anywhere near this deep) and insight.

The central funny person of FUNNY PEOPLE is George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a comedy star who is on the level of Sandler in real life. George may be rich and famous, but it’s clear he’s not fulfilled, becoming emotionally isolated on his way to stardom. Early in the film, Simmons finds out that he has a rare illness, one that will likely kill him. Very soon after hearing what seems to be his death sentence, George decides to do a spontaneous performance at a comedy club with a set that is morbidly hilarious, which is what you would expect from a comedian who was recently given incredibly disturbing news. The set doesn’t go over well for George, but does turn out to be a good thing for Ira (Seth Rogen) who makes some amusing observations about George’s act that the crowd seems to love. Eventually, Simmons hires Ira to be his joke writer and assistant. This relationship between a veteran and aspiring comedian is where a large amount of the film’s insights about the hollowness of show business, and the theme that you don’t get less, but rather more, problems when you make it, come from.

FUNNY PEOPLE does have some rather sobering things to say about those we idolize for their ability to tell us jokes, but these realizations don’t keep FUNNY PEOPLE from often being incredibly funny. There are many hilarious below-the-belt exchanges between Ira and his two roommates, Leo (Jonah Hill), a wannabe writer and comedian like Ira, and Mark (Jason Schwartzman), who is doing the best of the three careerwise, as he is the star of a bad TV sitcom. And, of course, as the film’s leads, Rogen and Sandler have a healthy share of memorable one-liners in FUNNY PEOPLE. Every actor I named in this paragraph is funny, and every one of them has considerable comical moments in the film – basically, funny people are funny in FUNNY PEOPLE.

***************If you haven’t yet watched the trailer, SPOILER ALERT****************
Some people might find FUNNY PEOPLE to be unnecessarily long, as it comes in at two hours and twenty minutes. The reason for the film’s length is due to the exploration of one of Apatow’s biggest themes of FUNNY PEOPLE, which is that sometimes people don’t change, even when they are given a second chance at life. George gets lucky and appears to beat the disease, but his cynical views on life never fully go away. He does attempt to get the one girl that got away Laura (Leslie Mann), who forgives George for what he did to her in the past due to his becoming sick. However, even when things seem to be going well for George and Laura (who is now married with two kids), George still doesn’t seem genuinely excited about it. When Laura shows George and Ira a video of her tween daughter doing a surprisingly good cover of a song from the musical CATS, George is unimpressed. Instead, George just plays with his phone and mentions that the studio is desperately trying to get him to do a sequel to one of his most popular films. George hasn’t changed, he is still the same disillusioned, hard to please asshole he was before he got sick.

The George/Laura aspect of FUNNY PEOPLE doesn’t become the center of the film’s attention until over an hour into the movie. Consider that, with the fact that Apatow devotes enough time and attention in developing the pseudo-relationship between George and Laura that could of easily been its own movie without the previous hour of film. Yes, there could have been some tightening, but it is clear that the segment’s length was due to Apatow wanting to get it right, and since he does for the most part, we should let it slide.

FUNNY PEOPLE is not only just as hilarious as the previous two comedies directed by Apatow, it is also shows that he is adding some nice depth as a filmmaker, giving even more promise to a directing career that has already been impressive.