Director; Judd Apatow
Writer:Judd Apatow
Cast: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Leslie Mann and Eric Bana
Throughout history Comedy has done some amazing things and achieved incredible feats; from getting Will Ferrell laid to making Tom Green some friends. But very few people know about the humble beginnings of Comedy, before he became as famous and renowned as he currently is. Most people think that Comedy is as old as the world that we live in – they are wrong. Comedy was born in the 1970’s in Britain; five heroic men donated their sperm and thus, under the name of Monty Python, created Comedy. Since then our dear friend Comedy has undergone many changes; In his early days comedy was disfigured and only taken in by the poor, his ragged clothing and stench prevented him from making any real friends. He was lonely and because of this never really enjoyed school, none of the cooler kids like Action would play with him, and romance, the Genre school hottie, ignored him. He was a late bloomer and remained childish for a very long time (to this day he even remains a little infantile). As a teenager Comedy got tired of being the class clown and dropped out of school, living in his parents’ basement he presented a TV show on public access. It was then that Comedy realised his calling, cinema. It’s hard to believe that Comedy, with his humble beginnings in a poor area of London would be the popular Hollywood star that he is today. What has been instrumental to his rise to fame was his friendship with some of the hottest celebrities in the world.
Over the years comedy has had many influential friends; Steve Martin, John Cleese and in the past decade Judd Apatow. Lately we have seen Comedy’s relationship with Apatow go from strength to strength; it’s crude, crass and awesome. It’s not funny in the same way that Monty Python or Charlie Chaplin is, it’s more human than that. Apatow’s Comedy makes us laugh at awkward people; who don’t quite fit in but try desperately to – he makes us laugh at real people and through doing so he makes us laugh at ourselves. Funny People isn’t typical of an Apatow Comedy we are made to laugh at the people performing in the film, not their characters. Funny People is essentially a comedy about how sad the lives of comedians are.
The plot revolves around George Simmons (Adam Sandler), a famous film comedian, who discovers that he is about to die. He starts assessing his life and realises his life is empty, filled only with empty pleasures. He starts trying to get the things in life he has always wanted, including his ex-girlfriend. It’s pretty sombre, but incredibly funny – in the laughing at the unhappy one-legged clown that has fallen over and can’t get up way.
But what strikes me about Funny People is the emotional depth of the characters. They all seem to have emotional backgrounds, scarred by their pasts and the choices that they’ve made. The emotions of the characters seem incredibly real for a comedy. At most points in the film the characters seem to be experiencing the multi-layered feelings that we have in real life. Because they aren’t just black and white the characters are harder to read and much more believable.
The film feels genuine and because of that it’s a bit scary but still makes you laugh. It can’t tell you much more than that about the film because it’s quite a lot to take in, exploring many facets of what it is to be human and what it means to live.
Funny People is good: if you want to see Adam Sandler do stand-up comedy and give his most mature performance yet then watch it. If you don’t – Fuck You.
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