I Love You, Man 2009
Much of this movie is more cute than funny, but it is still fun to watch the two main characters play off of each other. Paul Rudd is very good as a guy who has a hard time being friends with other guys. His fiancée thinks it is weird he has no guy friends, so he goes on a quest to make some. This starts with a series of “man dates” where he tries to do things with other men and runs into all of the cliché’d problems that women do on blind dates, which I won’t give away (but you’ve seen all of them). So that’s kind of a turnabout that is pretty amusing, but more cute than anything. It also introduces a running theme that male friendship is some kind of latent homosexuality. That kind of Cosmo magazine introspection where everything boils down to sex makes this kind of a chick flick for men and I didn’t care for that aspect. But I did enjoy watching the uptight Rudd interacting with the cooler than cool man’s man Jason Segel. Rudd is so awkward and Segel is so unabashed about his testosterone level. Segel just keeps pushing Rudd further and further while making some great, nearly supernatural observations. It is like a god playing around with a mortal. There are also some very sharp side characters with the highlights being J. K. Simmons as Rudd’s dad and a constantly bickering couple with Jaime Pressly and Jon Favreau (such a jerk that it is fun to watch). Some of the other side characters are just lame.
Anyway, this movie isn’t high art, but can be fun to watch if you keep an open mind and have low expectations. It seems a lot like a Judd Apatow comedy, but thankfully more like Forgetting Sarah Marshall than some of the lower brow stuff. B+
Written: 21 Aug 2009