Funny People (2009)

"Turns out to be one of the most absorbing films of the year.  Kyle Smith, New York Post
"The result is a raucously funny and poignant love letter to standup comics.  Perry Seibert, TV Guide
"It's the work of a major talent.  Peter Travers, Rolling Stone Magazine
"Funny People nimbly intersperses humor and reflection. It is a rumination on mortality, fame and life choices, punctuated with Apatow's trademark raunchy humor.  Claudia Puig, USA Today

Editor's Note Judd Apatow rounds up the usual suspects--Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, and Jonah Hill--for his third feature as a director. In FUNNY PEOPLE, a popular comedian comes far closer to death than he had every imagined. The comedy also stars Eric Bana, Jason Schwartzman, and RZA.

	Iris Apatow
	Maude Apatow
	Aziz Ansari
	Seth Rogen
	The RZA
	Adam Sandler
	Jason Schwartzman
	Aubrey Plaza
	Leslie Mann
	Eric Bana
	Judd Apatow - Producer
	Adam Sandler - Executive Producer
	Evan Goldberg - Executive Producer
	Jason Schwartzman - Composer
	Judd Apatow - Screenwriter
	Barry Mendel - Producer
	Jack Giarraputo - Executive Producer
	Clayton Townsend - Producer
	Seth Rogen - Executive Producer
	James Taylor - Himself
	Andy Dick - Himself
	Charles Fleischer - Himself
	Monty Hoffman - Himself
	Carol Leifer - Herself
	Paul Reiser - Himself
	George Wallace - Himself
	Norm MacDonald - Himself
	Dave Attell - Himself
	Sarah Silverman - Herself
	Eminem - Himself
	Ray Romano - Himself
	Janusz Kaminski - Director of Photography
	Judd Apatow - Director

Variety
"The film is outstanding at observing the interplay and competitiveness among three roommates....There's plenty to savor, beginning with SAndler's performance." 07/24/2009

Box Office
4.5 stars out of 5 -- "This comedy about comedians, mistakes and mortality is as constantly engaging and reliably hilarious as you'd expect from Apatow..." 07/29/2009

Chicago Sun-Times
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "The thing about FUNNY PEOPLE is that it's a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances -- and it's about something." 07/29/2009

New York Times
"The stand-up scenes, with their bad lighting and air of flop-sweat, have the sting of truth....[Adam Sandler is] the movie's biggest draw and its most effective and powerful presence." 07/31/2009

USA Today
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[M]ost will probably be riveted by its twists and turns and interactions of its complex characters....If you let yourself be transported along for the leisurely ride, the experience is, at times, even sublime." 07/31/2009

A.V. Club
"[T]remendously funny....The films Apatow writes and directs double as moral inquiries." -- Grade: B 07/30/2009

Premiere
"It works because it doesn't feel like it is trying to be funny...as a result it really is." 07/29/2009

Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "It's the work of a major talent. Apatow scores by crafting the film equivalent of a stand-up routine that encompasses the joy, pain, anger, loneliness and aching doubt that go into making an audience laugh." 07/30/2009

Movieline
"Apatow has fully realized his perspective on the world....Apatow is at his best in letting the exchanges between the men rest for several cumulative, complicated beats longer than he has before..." 07/29/2009

Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "FUNNY PEOPLE is Apatow's best yet, an artistic triumph worthy of awards." 08/11/2009

San Francisco Chronicle 9 of 10
These are good days for screen comedy - enjoy them while they last. Filmmakers are trying new things, breaking with formula and putting the emphasis on honesty, whether it leads them into extreme harsh humor or into areas that mix comedy with drama. At the head of the innovators is Judd Apatow, who, despite the success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, continues to push the definition of what a Judd Apatow movie is - and what a comedy can be - in his latest, Funny People....Funny People is a true brass ring effort, a reach for excellence that takes big risks. It's 146 minutes, with a story that's more European in feeling than American. It's not tightly structured but concentrates on the characters and their lives. There are no comic set pieces, and the personalities aren't exaggerated. Virtually every laugh comes simply from people saying funny things that they know are funny...Funny People introduces us into the professional culture of comedians, how they work, act, talk and think. (They don't laugh when they're told a joke. They say, "OK, that's funny.") Apatow shows us bad stand-up, mediocre stand-up and other stand-up that isn't good yet but could be. Almost in passing, Funny People satirizes bad TV sitcoms and pathetic formula comedies: Among George's credits are "Mer-man" and "My Best Friend Is a Robot," in which he is supposed to have co-starred with Owen Wilson...But despite the laughs, the movie is at heart serious. Rogen is subtle and effective as a young comic whose ambition is tempered by a fundamental decency. And Leslie Mann is lovely in a straight emotional role, as the ex-girlfriend George most values, if only because she loved him before he was anybody. Apatow takes no shortcuts in his characterizations. A TV sitcom star (Jason Schwartzman), who is partly shallow and self-satisfied, is not really a bad young guy, after all. And Eric Bana, as Mann's husband, is a complex figure, on the surface just a slick businessman, but one who is on a genuine spiritual journey...Apatow is not afraid of his characters being like real people or of his stories finding their way to their own truth. With his first two movies but especially with Funny People, Apatow is showing that truth is not the enemy of comedy but its wellspring and its ideal destination. - Mick LaSalle

Chicago Sun-Times 9 of 10
Stand-up comics feel compelled to make you laugh. They're like an obnoxious uncle, with better material. The competition is so fierce these days that most of them are pretty good. I laugh a lot. But unlike my feelings for Catherine Keener, for example, I don't find myself wishing they were my friends. I suspect they're laughing on the outside but gnashing their teeth on the inside...Judd Apatow would possibly agree with this theory. Recently I e-mailed him a bunch of questions and that was the only one he ignored. He was writing material for comics when he was a teenager, and his insights into the stand-up world inform Funny People, his new film that has a lot of humor and gnashing. It's centered on Adam Sandler's best performance, playing George Simmons, a superstar comic who learns he has a very short time to live...He is without the resources to handle this news. He doesn't have the "support group" they say you need when you get sick. He's made a dozen hit movies and lives in opulence in a house overlooking Los Angeles but is so isolated, he doesn't even seem to have any vices for company. Adam Sandler modulates George's desperation in a perceptive, sympathetic performance; I realized here, as I did during his Punch Drunk Love, that he contains an entirely different actor than the one we're familiar with. His fans are perfectly happy with Sandler's usual persona, the passive-aggressive semi-simpleton. This other Sandler plays above and below that guy, and more deeply...The film presents a new Seth Rogen, much thinner, dialed down, with more dimensions. Rogen was showing signs of forever playing the same buddy-movie co-star, but here we find that he, too, has another actor inside. So does Jason Schwartzman, who often plays vulnerable but here presents his character as the kind of successful rival you love to hate...Apatow understands that every supporting actor has to pull his weight. The casting director who found him Torsten Voges to play George's doctor earned a day's pay. Voges is in some eerie, bizarre way convincing as a cheerful realist bringing terrible news: miles better than your stereotyped grim movie surgeon...After an enormously successful career as a producer, this is Apatow's third film as a director, after The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Of him it can be said: He is a real director. He's still only 41. So here we go. - Roger Ebert

ReelViews 8 of 10
It's written and directed by Judd Apatow and stars Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan, so it must be funny, right? The problem with expectations is that they can lead to disappointment. That's not to say Funny People is devoid of humor - in fact, there are some genuinely funny bits sprinkled throughout. However, Funny People represents an attempt by Apatow to broaden the real estate of the orifice into which he has become pigeonholed. His previous two directorial efforts, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, have frequently been labeled as ribald romantic comedies - films whose sweet cores are hidden by copious layers of profanity and frank sexual discourse. Funny People is a different sort of movie, because it's more of a drama, and an uncomfortable one at that, than it is a comedy. Any relationships, whether male/female romances or male/male bonding, are secondary to Apatow's fascination with the travails of a misanthrope who is living under a death sentence. The movie will challenge Apatow fans and Sandler devotees. It's a brave move that is partially undone by pacing problems and a lack of focus. Despite having obviously been cut to bring down the running length, Funny People still clocks in at nearly 2 1/2 hours, and that's too long for these characters to sustain audience interest. The movie wears thin its welcome a couple of reels before Apatow has finished telling his story...Funny People's tone is odd, as if George Carlin had script doctored a screenplay written by Ingmar Bergman. It's not inherently uninteresting but it can be off-putting and the film's indefensible length turns what could have been an intriguing experiment into something that too often feels like an endurance contest. In the end, Apatow can't quite bring all the elements together. The last film that left me conflicted and believing there was something good to be found in the debris was Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. It's refreshing to see Apatow branching out and trying something off the beaten path but, in this case, his sense of ambition may have caused him to lose his way. - James Berardinelli