Apatow's work is proudly dumb while Coward's is proudly smart.
If you have fond memories of “Knocked Up” and “Superbad,” you probably should
see “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” the final shot in Producer Judd Apatow’s effort
to create the trifecta of American sex comedy. The jokes in this kind of thing
are usually visual or verbal and always involve some variation of sexual
aerobics. We have seen this story before in Noel Coward’s “Private Lives” –
though that comparison is a bit of a stretch. Apatow’s work is proudly dumb
while Coward’s is proudly smart.
Peter Bretter
(Jason Segal) is living in bachelor squalor when his girlfriend Sarah Marshall
(Kristen Bell) calls to say she is on the way over. After throwing the
accumulated debris in the closet, Peter takes a shower to ready himself for the
visit, exits the bathroom, all smiles, only to see a grim faced Sarah standing
there, announcing she is dumping him. Peter, taken by surpise, is naked and
remains so throughout Sarah’s breakup speech. If he put clothes on, he says,
“it’s all over.” Stark naked, it’s still over.
The
inevitable march toward on-screen male nakedness began with Tom Hanks peeing
into a bucket in “A League of Their Own.” After that, men and urinals became
standard fare until now Jason Segal, who wrote the role he plays here, has
opened the door for the full frontal that will now unfold relentlessly. Lisa
Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly has likened Segal’s physique to a “long,
pale, uncooked dinner roll,” a vision far funnier than anything the movie has to
offer.
All that
aside, the devastated Peter takes the advice of his step-brother Brian (Bill
Hader) and heads for Hawaii to distract himself. Peter’s tears flow in a copious
flood that so endears him to the hotel staff that they fold him into their
feathers for safekeeping - especially the pretty receptionist Racheal (Mila
Kunis). You will believe, I know, that Sarah Marshall and her new boyfriend,
rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) have just checked in. In the Coward
scenario they end up in suites with adjoining balconies. From that point
forward, the dialogue sags and never recovers.
The central
problem here is weak casting. When the hero of a raunchy comedy is a sweet,
gentle giant like Jason Segel’s Peter, you better surround him with plenty of
fizz. Segal is surrounded by an uninspired supporting cast. Russell Brand’s rock
star is appropriately and obnoxiously awful; Mila Kunis’ receptionist is
credible and game; but she who should have made the whole film fly – Kristin
Bell – makes Sarah Marshall colorless and ordinary. It is hard to imagine her as
the cause of Peter’s anguish. Except for a couple of fiery moments when her
anger lights the match, the flabby story just gets tossed back and forth among
people who do nothing with it. Credit Jason Segal with creating a quiet
sweetness in a man and remember, he started it all here with his dinner roll.
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