George Simmons (Adam Sandler) is the world’s most successful comedian. He worked his way up from the club to the movies. Consider him a darker personification of Sandler; even the films he’s known for strike me as Sandler projects in the making. Once Simmons is diagnosed with cancer he seeks solace through the only friends he has: a live crowd at a local stand-up club. This is where he runs into amateur comic Ira (Seth Rogen). For unknown reasons, George enlists the comically inept Ira into writing some jokes for him.
Ira is promoted to personal assistant status, and made savvy to George’s condition. Here starts our bromance. George wants to keep the public in the dark, but also wants to rectify a mistake with ex-girlfriend Laura (Leslie Mann). Laura has moved on with her life; now married to Clark (Eric Bana), who has given her two daughters. Sadly, it is here that director/writer Apatow introduces us to his brood. Even as child actresses Maude and Iris are tough to watch.
There is a great deal of false advertising at work. I’ve seen two cuts of the trailer, both featuring jokes that were excluded from the finished product. Many of these jokes were strong, but perhaps they didn’t directly address Apatow’s genitalia complex, causing them to not make the grade. Another issue presented the by trailers is an abundance of information. The trailer goes as far as to point out that George’s cancer enters remission. Maybe this was necessary so we could get the love triangle aspect addressed to the audience, but with the first hour dealing exclusively with an issue the audience knows to be irrelevant, I can’t help but wonder why the movie is so long. Now would be a great time to note that George is a horrible fellow. Through the course of the film it’s established that he’s a jerk to all, cheated on Laura, and certainly not a sympathetic character for the audience to care about. Even worse, Clark is no better, so I didn’t know who to pull for and why should I care when Laura has an affinity for these types?
Ira has his own group of friends; mostly present to pad the movie and cause confusion as to who exactly it’s about. Leo (Jonah Hill) is the guy George should have found the number of and called exclusively for writing. Then there is Mark (Jason Schwartzman) who stars on Yo Teach, a NBC show for teens. There is also an awkward love interest in Daisy (Aubrey Plaza) who is… guess what? An aspiring comedienne. But we aren’t done with our entertainer count. A plethora of cameos gives us over a dozen more, and yields some of the better moments of the movie. In fact, these smaller roles are infinitely more interesting than George and written as though they were in a stand alone movie which somehow intersected with Funny People.
With a title like Funny People, you have to suspect that it won’t be funny. It’s like assuming Epic Movie would actually be epic. I’ve seen many occurrences where audiences have laughed at the same joke they’ve seen 100 times on TV (Brüno), but why take some of the best offerings out of the final product? I can see and appreciate a drama about a comedian, but this guy needs to be likable. Maybe the only likable characters in the entire film are the two tikes of Apatow and Mann. There is a clear level of expertise in the craft of filmmaking, and most of the acting is good, but so much more could have been done with a focus on better characters. Even a forced Hollywood ending, with zero justification, made me angry because these people didn’t earn it. Funny People looks good, sounds good, is a little long, mildly funny, but a disappointment. **½
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