By Elliot Boswell?Staff Writer boswell10@up.edu
The last couple of years have seen a shift in comedic filmmaking. More specifically, they've seen a shift in the kind of comedies that the movie-going public wants, and accordingly, the kind of comedies that top the box office.
Around 2006 or so, it appeared as though public interest in Wes Anderson had dried up somewhat (although his work is pretty dry to begin with), Saturday Night Live exports had grown stale and the market for teen spoofs seemed to have evaporated.
Into the void stepped Judd Apatow, and as everyone knows at this point, he has yet to look back.
His now-trademark blend of tender moments mixed with gross-out ones seems to have struck some chord with audiences and presented a nuanced, more modern idea of masculinity, and in doing so, signaled a subtle shift away from chick flicks to male-oriented ones.
"I Love You, Man" is directed by longtime Apatow collaborator John Hamburg and consequently, it has Apatovian fingerprints all over it, from casting decisions to dialogue to sentiment.
So while the cards are certainly similar, the deck has been re-shuffled and "I Love You, Man" shores up the weaknesses of its predecessors while retaining their strengths.
The film is the story of Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd), an affable, slightly effeminate real estate agent who is engaged to Zooey (Rashida Jones).
Peter is a woman's man at heart (as opposed to a "ladies' man") and, after proposing to Zooey, realizes that after a lifetime of being the good boyfriend, he has no one to serve as best man at his upcoming wedding.
So like anyone would do, he goes on a string of "man-dates" to try and find a male friend and before long, he meets Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), who is perhaps the antithesis of the doting Peter: Sydney is someone who wears his masculinity so well that he can pull off the underappreciated Uggs/swimsuit look. He has an infallible BS detector, and when he admits to Peter that he goes to open houses to meet recently-divorced, wealthy cougars, the match seems to be made in heaven.
What follows is, well, a bromance. (There, I said it.) Peter and Sydney spend all their time in each other's company, go on walks together, get jealous, fight, break up and eventually make up.
Rudd, who, despite his movie star looks has spent his entire career in supporting roles, finally gets to play a leading man, and he's magnetic throughout; cripplingly genial, he drifts from awkward hello to awkward goodbye, growing increasingly more insecure over the course of the film.
As for Segel, he's as different here as he possibly could be from his ultra-sensitive role in "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," slovenly, shameless and oblivious to the fact that everyone is growing up as he remains stuck in perpetual adolescence.
Together, the pair's dynamic comes off a little like an amalgam of Will Ferrell's (probably) immortal turn as Chazz Reinhold in "Wedding Crashers," part mama's boy, part womanizer.
Like the rest of its peers, "I Love You, Man" is at heart most concerned with pushing out at the borders of masculinity. Much of the film's dialogue blurs gender lines entirely; I counted multiple instances when either "he/him" or "she/her" could have been used interchangeably.
Peter's gay brother Robby (Andy Samberg, in a particularly hilarious performance) is so butch - he works as a personal trainer so he can pick up married men at the gym - that he puts Peter to shame.
Even Sydney's androgynous name hints at the ridiculousness of a narrow definition of either "masculinity" or "femininity."
Certainly, female characters don't play a central role in the movie, a tendency for which films like "Knocked Up" have been criticized in the past. This, however, is a little unfair: When was the last time "Sex and the City" was faulted for not including enough men?
These are films by guys for guys, and the fact that it has crossover appeal is a wonderful fringe benefit. The women here are understanding and often funny themselves, far from cardboard stereotypes or male fantasies.
But a review of "I Love You, Man" is not the place for cultural theory. It's a little vulgar, mostly sweet, and more importantly, you can take from it what you wish.
