A Review of Funny People: Too Much, and Too Little

I once went to a wine-tasting seminar in which I expressed confusion as to how one can deliver an objective assessment of wine and place it on a numerical scale. What makes one cabernet a 97, and another a 92 - and how many tasters can tell the difference in quality? The answer I received was fascinating and maddening, but perhaps the only answer that may have satisfied me: there is nothing "objective" about it. The rating is ultimately a subjective one, but delivered from someone who has tasted enough wines to develop a reliable sense of what wine from a particular grape or blend "should be." The "scale" is different for every bottle of wine tasted, and likely for any taster as well.

So what relevance might this hold to a movie review? Quite simply, a viewer's expectations going into a movie will inherently affect the way that reviewer ultimately rates the movie. For Funny People, a movie that promised humor and poignancy, while starring two established comedic actors in Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan (each of whose work I have enjoyed), this set the bar rather high. After all, the "genuine comedy with depth" category of film suggests a level of fulfillment a bit beyond what one expects from a Happy Gilmore or a Knocked Up. Further, since the movie is centered around stand-up comedians, I expected to laugh heartily between the serious moments. In short, this film should have delivered an emotional back and forth experience, leaving me exhausted but smiling at the end. As I will describe below (making best efforts not to spoil details of the film for would-be viewers), it fell short.

Acting

Appreciation of any film begins with the actors. In this regard, it wasn't bad. Seth Rogan was Seth Rogan - brilliantly awkward, funny with a humanness to him that either is genuine or shows him to be a better actor than anyone realizes. Sandler, too, was good, projecting with his eyes what might otherwise have made the film much worse if he were forced to add lines to say it. There was a subtlety to the performance that the casual observer might not have known he could manage. Rating the film based on what the actors involved ought to present for an audience, I cannot complain.

Writing

Here is where the film started to lose me. The jokes in the script (and/or ad-libbed - I pretend to possess no inside knowledge in this regard) were fine. The stand-up scenes - particularly from Sandler and Rogan - were funny, if a bit too reliant on genital-based humor. I can appreciate a well-delivered joke about the male form as well as the next quasi-well-adjusted guy, but more variety would have helped. Further, the intentionally-bad stand-up material was beautiful. Finally, George's disease was handled with more subtlety in the script than I expected.

Unfortunately, to the extent plot matters, Funny People was weak. Aside from Sandler's George and Rogan's Ira, the characters moved through emotions too quickly, coming off almost as parts moved from place to place on an emotional spectrum to set up the main characters. A character placed in a film as a foil still needs to be developed enough to effectively serve in that role. Further, the writing involved too many convenient wrap-ups, without developing the story to the extent it developed the main characters.

The convenient retort, of course, would be that this is a character-driven film. Unfortunately, though, without the plot showing how the characters develop, or why they develop, it just doesn't work.

Directing

Finally, I have to fault the directing in part. The film went about forty-five minutes too long. Part of this was working to develop nuance in the film, allowing Sandler and Rogan to show rather than having the movie tell. At some point, though, the film needed to do something to help them show, and it did not. The parade of famous faces in the middle, rather than serving a purpose within the film, dragged it down even further. A plodding pace resulted, one that distracted from the humor and detracted from the poignancy that Funny People should have provided.

The Verdict

In short, Funny People did not deliver. With so much promise, it would have required a great script, great acting (within the envelopes of the stars, of course), and great directing and producing. In other words, while rating this film is not the same as rating Casablanca, it is also not the same as rating Scary Movie. Based on the advertising and the potential, this is not the film equivalent of rating a white zinfandel.

So, on the admittedly subjective 100-point scale I have just contrived for films, rating this against what a film of its ilk ought to be, I must give this one a 78. There were high points, to be sure, but overall, I was disappointed.