Forgetting Sarah Marshall

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall”

USA. 2008. Directed by Nicholas Stoller. Written by Jason Segel. Starring: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader, Liz Cackowski, Maria Thayer, Jack McBrayer, Taylor Wily, William Baldwin, Davon McDonald, Steve Landesberg, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Kala Alexander.

Rating: ★★★

Forgetting Sarah Marshall marks a more mature return to form for the Judd Apatow comedy troupe. I was starting to think that, after the success of his show, Freaks and Geeks and the movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, producer Apatow was turning into the big bully of geek comedies by just hammering dirty jokes over delivering real wit and substance in movies like Knocked Up and Superbad. With this film, the troupe hearkens back to a more old-fashioned comedy premise to mine some fresher, funnier jokes.

The setup is essentially a cross between the 1979 Blake Edwards comedy, 10 and any Ben Stiller comedy where he gets dumped or harassed by his girlfriend/wife on vacation (one of which was the crass remake of 1972's The Heartbreak Kid). A music composer, Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) gets dumped by his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) and decides to escape to a resort, only to find that she is vacationing at the very same spot with her latest beau. Where this film is more successful than all of those movies is in avoiding the excessive objectifying ogling on Bo Derek and providing more comical dimension than just the one note that Stiller has overplayed one too many times.

As the movie opens, we see that Sarah Marshall is a famous TV actress on a primetime crime show that plays, thanks to William Baldwin’s cameo as her onscreen sidekick, as a hilarious send-up of how grotesquely absurd those CSI shows can get. Peter works on scoring the same show and the couple was favorably in the spotlight. Then, one day, Sarah tells him that she is leaving him for another guy. A few weeks pass before Peter goes on vacation to Hawaii only to see Sarah and the guy she was cheating with, a hedonistic John Lennon-wannabe rocker named Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) who likes to suggestively gyrate his hips to denote his free-wheeling liberal affection.

As was the case with Dudley Moore in 10, it goes without saying that gradually everyone in the island will huddle around and come to sympathize and warm up to Peter and Segel crucially makes his character comically engaging to us, too. One key to this is in how fearlessly self-effacing he makes himself, whether he bares his flabby body stark-naked during the breakup scene or literally emotionally, pitifully trashes himself to hilarious effect thereafter (such as crying and sobbing in pain while bedding with a woman he just randomly picked up). As the writer, he also comes up with better, wittier jokes based on the awkwardness of failed romance than those of the mere shock value variety we normally get in sex comedies like this. He is even able to inject more verbal wit into the usual raunch that goes with the genre.

Most refreshingly, in a nice surprise that was absent in Apatow comedies since The 40-Year-Old Virgin, this film is more thoughtful in dealing with its female characters. It does not resort to the shrill stereotype to portray the heartbreaker, Sarah Marshall but makes her an independent character with showbiz career fears of her own. Best of all, it gives us a completely fresh “good girl” character in the form of Rachel (Mila Kunis from That 70s Show). Her entrance as a hotel front desk manager could have been done a little better, as she seems so obviously placed there to comfort Peter at just the right time and ultimately be his saving grace and potential new love interest. But Kunis’ performance quickly takes over with a delicate mixture of endearing affection and a lot of spunk.

The Judd Apatow regulars who appear in this vacation are also funnier this time around without being tiresome and annoying. The always reliable Paul Rudd gets to play a surfer instructor so laid back that he won’t remember you the next time you meet him and could practically be classified as having short-term memory loss. Meanwhile, Jonah Hill from Superbad is thankfully restrained here as a restaurant waiter who idolizes Aldous Snow and, at one point, does a humorous Cockney accent impersonation to show it. The funniest zingers though belong to Bill Hader who spouts out the most jaw-droppingly blunt one-liners in reaction to Peter’s piteous relationship woes (which I won’t repeat because the filmmakers are wise enough to conceal them from the previews).

The director is Nicholas Stoller, who makes his directing debut after previously penning the disastrous remake Fun with Dick and Jane. This time, he and all of the actors have better material to work with than that in Knocked Up or Superbad because they let much of the comedy grow organically from the premise rather than relying too much on gross-out jokes or pop culture jokes. And they leave the one inspired pop culture parody for the very end in a musical number that I would not dream of giving away.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

“Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day”

USA. 2008. Directed by Bharat Nalluri. Screenplay by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy. Based on the novel by Winifred Watson. Starring: Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Ciaran Hinds, Lee Pace, Shirley Henderson, Nick Colderelli, Tom Payne, Stephanie Cole, Beatie Edney and Clare Clifford.

Rating: ★★★

Curious how upbeat and cheery the title, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day sounds despite that, in a harsher, ironic frame of mind, it suggests that the titular character has not had a day to really live out her life. That growing cynicism is probably why 1930s screwball comedies with such deceptive titles have been so rare in the movies lately. Well, it is refreshing to know that a breezy screwball comedy can be made without being a remake or relying on obvious references to other movies of the genre.

The movie, of course, still carries the common theme of most period screwball comedies: class divide. The misunderstood underdog character in this story is a lower-class, middle-aged woman named Guinevere Pettigrew who can barely make a living on wages earned from working as a nanny from home to home. After being fired from her latest hirer for being too difficult, rigid and stern as well as having a disheveled look, her request for another job from the employment agency gets turned down. Thus, when she sees a card about an opening to work with a rising American socialite and aspiring actress, Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams), she secretly takes it and quickly seizes the opportunity.

Little does she know that the job opening is not for a nanny but for a social secretary. Delysia is not as genteel or refined as Guinevere expected either when she first arrives and the same could be said for about 15 minutes of the film when McDormand and particularly Adams act a little too histrionically to reflect the latter’s high-strung personality and the former’s improvisational adjustment to it. The scene itself is certainly supposed to be quite frantic but the direction should keep it either in check or in focus, which it doesn’t particularly when Adams is moving about frantically in the background and the camera unwisely stays steadily on McDormand. I half-expected even the sets to start wobbling and moving around.

After that opening scene though, both actresses and the film finally ease into a smooth and easygoing chemistry. McDormand’s Guinevere uses her quick wit and womanly wisdom to guide Adams’ Delysia to sort out her messy, frenzied life of hastily, foolishly seducing men to earn acting roles and figuring out whether one man, Michael (Lee Pace) may have more sincere feelings about her. Guinevere gets a makeover, too, as Delysia brings out the inner beauty under the ragged clothes and the frumpy hairdo, though, of course, she starts out being an impostor of sorts as well.

To make an unadorned throwback to the period featherbrained comedies rather than a haughty homage, the filmmakers chose wisely to adapt the 1938 novel by Winifred Watson and the material obviously fit like a glove to make a cross of the writers’ imaginations between David Magee of Finding Neverland and Simon Beaufoy of The Full Monty. The peculiar credit, however, is in director, Bharat Nalluri who successfully steps outside of his usual filmography of forgettable, chaotic B-movies. His direction early in the movie is a little too shaky and frenetic as aforementioned but thankfully calms down to a jazzy mood and lets the actors shine through the bubbly material. He also makes sure to give a slightly bittersweet edge by staying true to the period in which WWII was beginning and parties were halted in fear of bombing raids.

McDormand is the steady anchor of the story, giving the film its old-fashioned balance of light-footed comedy, sympathy and world-weariness and even transforming the classical running gag of her character being always hungry and having her food taken away just when tries to eat it. Adams could have toned down her Carole Lombard-like mannerisms a bit in the beginning but lends her usual irresistible lovability to bring out her character’s confused ingénue qualities amidst her initial haughty, carefree attitude of looking to the quickest advantage to her own aspirations. She also gets to display her natural singing ability again in an unexpected, touching rendition of “If I Didn't Care.” The nicest surprise though is in the great character actor, Ciaran Hinds, who, after playing many a second banana role, refreshingly gets to play a woman’s lingerie designer devoid of all the clichés of movie fashion designers and become a desired romantic lead for McDormand’s character.

Comedies like this tend to be brushed off by most audiences because they seem to be done so easily. The irony, of course, is that it is that much more difficult to make movies like this so effortlessly lovable. A movie like Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is proof that filmmakers acknowledge there are people like myself who are willing to appreciate the naively simple title and their efforts to shed our own everyday cynicism.