Times seen: 2; Times paid for: 0

I LOVE YOU, MAN

The free preview screening is a beautiful thing. My roommate Mike has been signing up for a lot of them recently, but since he often can't go when he gets passes, he hands them off to me. One result of this has been my seeing I Love You, Man (trailer) twice already, though it won't receive general release until Friday, and both times for free (unless you consider having to see it at some less than convenient locations an expense). As you should be able to tell from the fact that I've seen it twice, I found it an enjoyable little movie, and so spending some time talking about its strengths and weaknesses will be a welcome break from the dead-seriousness of Che.

I'm a fan of the Apatow Factory. Though not infallible, its successes (Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared on TV; The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Walk Hard, etc. in theaters) far outweigh its failures (Kicking and Screaming, Drillbit Taylor). Even its products that don't quite rise to the level of comedic genius are still funny enough to be worthwhile, and almost always have enough basis in genuine human relationships, emotions, and experiences to engage, to one degree or another, the heart as well.

Though not directly a work of Apatow himself (besides maybe an executive-producer credit), I Love You, Man—written and directed by John Hamburg, who directed three episodes of Undeclared, and starring Apatow veterans Paul Rudd and Jason Segel—is instantly recognizable as Apatovian. It tells the tale of Peter (Rudd), who gets engaged but has no close male friend to act as best man at the wedding. After a few unsuccessful "man dates" to find suitable best-man material, he runs into Sydney (Segel), a relaxed, straight-talking yin to anxious, somewhat uptight Peter's yang. They hit it off, and the movie progresses through their growing friendship and some third-reel conflicts to its predictable though pleasant conclusion.

First and foremost, this movie is really funny. The script gives the cast some good material, and generally they make the most of it with spot-on delivery and chemistry. As we've seen before, Rudd and Segel work well together, in many regards reversing their roles from Forgetting Sarah Marshall, where Segel played the more serious broken-hearted lead and Rudd played the so-laid-back-he's-horizontal surfing instructor. Rudd's role in I Love You, Man is particularly interesting due to the fact that, for the most part, up till now he's played cool, confident buddy-characters (Anchorman, Knocked Up, Role Models). In this one, he convincingly plays a guy who's visibly anxious and unsure of himself outside of his comfort zones; he's a nice, well meaning guy, but just a little dorky. Segel, the other half of the movie's formula, has the easier, more straightforward role but acquits himself admirably in it, nailing the comedy and convincingly portraying the ups and downs of Peter and Sydney's relationship. I didn't literally fall out of my seat laughing like I did the first time I saw Knocked Up, but nevertheless the comedy was almost always sharp as a tack.

Though a fine example of the Apatovian blend of humor and emotion, I Love You, Man has a few serious flaws. The most serious is the way it uses its supporting cast, or, rather, fails to use them. The great J.K. Simmons, playing Peter's father, had only one comic scene in the entire movie, whetting my Simmons appetite without satisfying it. Jane Curtin, as Peter's mother, was given a total of zero comic scenes or lines; how you can cast a founding cast member of SNL and essentially make her part of the background scenery is baffling. Rashida Jones, as Peter's fiancée, and Andy Sandberg, as his brother, have some humorous interactions with Rudd but for the most part are relegated to straight-man duty or just moving the plot along. Others—I'm particularly thinking of Aziz Ansari—are given only a couple lines before disappearing altogether. Of a potentially legendary supporting cast, only a few are effectively utilized. Foremost of these is Jon Favreau as the fiancée's friend's husband, who plays an angry, selfish douchebag scarily convincingly. Another is Rob Huebel as Peter's "frosty-haired chode" of a co-worker; I could watch a whole movie of that character if I didn't want to punch him in the face the whole time. And in a small but choice role there's Thomas Lennon (cast member of The State, Lt. Dangle on Reno 911!) as one of Peter's "man dates" who didn't get the memo that he was looking for a platonic relationship. A movie like this can go from good to great based on its supporting cast, so I Love You, Man really stumbles by not making the most of its stellar talent.

So, in the end, that's my assessment of I Love You, Man, good but not great. The humor works almost without a hitch (there's a running gag of Peter's awkward, nonsensical attempts at slang that gets run into the ground, but that's about it), and the highs and lows of Peter and Sydney's friendship come across with genuine feeling, but Hamberg fails to make the most of the tools at his disposal, keeping an entertaining little movie from entering the Apatow pantheon of comedy.