April 13, 2009: I Love You, Man
Wow, I really need to catch up on my reviews, because it feels like forever since I saw this movie. But it feels like that in a good way, in that I’m thinking that it’s almost time to revisit it again. I Love You, Man has a level of emotional and social honesty only rarely attempted in comedies, with success even more rarely achieved. Knocked Up was an example of such a film, with some typically unspoken honesty about relationships between men and women, coincidentally also involving Paul Rudd. I Love You, Man isn’t quite on the same level, but explores similar territory between male friends.
So, what’s the story here? Judd Apatow regular supporting player Paul Rudd plays a guy (Peter) who is engaged to be married to the love of his life, Zooey (played by The Office’s Rashida Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones and probably deserving of more big-screen time, even though I’m not entirely convinced of her acting range). In preparing for the wedding, Peter realizes that he needs to choose a best man, and comes to the sudden realization that he has no male friends. They all just sort of faded away over the years, and while Peter is certainly sociable, and gets along famously with Zooey’s friends, it seems that he doesn’t do stuff with any other people.
So Peter needs to find a male friend. Cue the “man dating” medley, as he desperately tries to come up with someone to be his best man. This sequence is not overplayed, is totally at home in this movie, and doesn’t even stray too far into homophobic territory as this kind of thing so easily can. Fortunately (and not through the online personals), Peter meets Sydney, an apparently cool and popular man-child who lives on his own near the L.A. beaches. They click immediately, and start to hang out a lot, and Peter rediscovers his long-dormant passion for playing rock music as he and Sydney bond over their shared love of the Canadian band Rush (who make an appearance in the film in a concert setting). This all causes tension as Zooey realizes that Peter is swinging too far towards the other extreme, and there’s a question about whether the wedding will still happen, and Peter and Sydney “break up”, and all the usual stuff. A bit formulaic, but that’s to be expected. We eventually learn a lot more about Sydney and where he’s coming from, which explains a lot.
Director/co-writer John Hamburg is associated with Ben Stiller projects from years past, including Zoolander and the “Meet the Parents” film and its sequels, which are solid comedies if a bit lazy. I Love You, Man gets stuck in some Stilleresque cringe comedy at times, with Rudd and his silly fake nicknames, and the male-bonding take on the classic “leaving an awkward phone message after meeting someone for the first time” scene, done more or less perfectly by Jon Favreau in Swingers (Favreau also appears in this film) and never matched since. I seriously think that trimming these few things would make this a much better film, because it would clearly remove the slapstick tone and leave us in the “absurdity plus some reality” mode which seems to connect with viewers.
Rudd and Segel have good chemistry, which is the key requirement for this film. Jon Favreau has a few funny lines but is mostly wasted in a bit part as the husband of one of Zooey’s friends, who absolutely hates Peter and won’t invite him to his poker games. The rest of the film is pretty lean, and of course there’s some kind of happy ending, as expected.
Another movie that’s honest about relationships.
Post a Comment