5. Funny People
The bulk of feeling toward Judd Apatows
Funny People was that it was overtly long, and possessed an unnecessary final act which devolved into cliché. Superstar comedian George Simmonds fight with cancer was the primary focus of the film, and when it goes into remission one could argue the film came to a natural conclusion. Yet the film just continued, fleshing out what had up to then been a sub-plot George trying to reconcile with his unhappily married ex-fiancée, Laura. Up to that point, the cancer had served to create an excellent character study into the fragile and self-loathing psyche of a man who is deeply, deeply damaged, and it was an incredibly impressive performance. The melodrama threatened to derail a film which had so far been grounded in human realism. Its obvious really; when your main premise has been resolved and is as monolithic as cancer, it probably isnt wise to expand a sub-plot to further the main narrative. Everything which follows the c-bomb will appear cloying and hollow, as is the case here. However, what this arbitrary final act disguised is that up until the Eminem cameo, the film had actually been nothing short of excellent. It provided a wry, bittersweet look at the vacuous, empty life of a superstar comedian alienated from all others by his staggering success and self-destructive nature. And George Simmonds is brought excellently to life by one of cinemas rarities; a great Adam Sandler performance. His portrayal of a man consumed by equal parts narcissism and regret underpins the film and drives it on. It was a revelatory performance, adding
Funny People to the (admittedly sparse) pantheon of great Adam Sandler films up there with
Punch Drunk Love and
Reign Over Me. Because hes not playing the caricature he so often falls back on, he actually has to exert himself to capture the nature of a character far more complex than a Longfellow Deeds, Larry or any other identikit role the comedian plays in his Happy Madison films. Admittedly, its not much of a stretch for Sandler hes essentially playing himself. And therein lay a further problem for some people. To many, it was too real. George Simmonds wasnt a caricature, he was a pastiche of Sandler, right down to the career trajectory. Both men were settling into a superstardom supported by mediocre films behold the utterly banal looking Re-do, clearly a satire of some of Sandlers ill-advised back catalogue, such as
Click. This self-awareness made
Funny People easy to criticise, because Sandlers performance here was two things; uniformly excellent yet utterly knowing of his previous shit performances. If in the wake of this film Sandler had graduated onto more dramatic fare,
Funny People mightve been seen as some sort of paradigm shift in the dramatic life of Sandler. But as we all know, thats not what happened; he went back to identikit, low-brow comedies, releasing the utterly terrible
Grown Ups in the wake of this and annoying many passionate film fans. This made them angry it was as if Sandlers filmography now represented a giant middle finger to his fans. Yet should we damn
Funny People, just because of the context in which it finds itself? No, I dont think we should.
FunnyPeople was a damn fine film, helped along by its self-awareness. It brutally skewers Sandlers own career to provide an excellent character study, and supplemented this with a bracingly realistic look at the cut-throat world of start-out stand-ups. This unflinching critique of the comedy world represents an enthralling premise and must be held to the films credit. So hiding underneath the overtly long run-time and the later vitriol over Sandler is an excellent film. I really do believe that if
Funny People had shed its final act, Sandler mightve been nominated for an Oscar for his performance here. Then
Grown Ups wouldve looked
really stupid.