Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Our Rating: ****
I can’t remember who it was, whether I read it somewhere or it was a friend, that said “These guys take turns getting famous,” in reference to the clan of actors that have worked and grown up under the wing of producer-writer-director Judd Apatow, but they were definitely right.
And I hope Jason Segel, the actor in the movie whose character, Peter Bretter, is attempting to forget Sarah Marshall, stays famous, because he has long been a favorite of mine.
My favorite line in “Knocked Up” is when Segel and Jonah Hill are playing ping-pong and Segel’s character says “You know who I’d like to get pregnant? It’s that Felicity Huffman, man. Ever since ‘Transamerica’ I can’t get her out of my mind.”
Reading that it might not be so funny, but I’m about 80 percent sure that was improvised, his delivery made it, and as soon as I got home, I had to Google him to find out who that guy was.
And now he’s starring in a movie that he wrote, and I enjoyed the hell out of it.
The basic plot is Segel’s character, Peter Bretter dates Sarah Marshall, an actress starring in an NBC crime drama called “Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime.” Billy Baldwin has a small part as a “David Caruso as Lt. Horatio Cain”-esque character in a couple scenes from Sarah’s show.
My mom is a big “CSI: Miami” fan, so I enjoyed his take on Caruso’s crooked-headed delivery of the corniest lines ever written for a television show.
Peter is the musician who scores the show, but his secret desire is to create a rock opera based on the story of Dracula and act it out with puppets.
Sarah, played by Kristen Bell, dumps Peter after a five-year relationship, and breaks his heart. The break up scene is as funny and uncomfortable as it appears in the trailer, and Jason Segel puts it all out there, several times.
The audience is treated to a depressed Peter, not unlike Segel’s character of Eric on the canceled Apatow-created show “Undeclared.” Segel plays a great depressed ex-boyfriend.
His depression is funny enough and sincere enough where you can laugh at him and still claim to care about the character. Peter decides he needs to hook up with several girls to feel better, but it doesn’t help.
His brother, played by Bill Hader, suggests he go on a vacation, where he runs into Sarah and her new boyfriend, Aldous Snow, a parody mashup of European rock stars like Bono and Noel Gallagher, played by Russell Brand. Brand is apparently pretty huge in England as a standup and television host.
Brand really does steal the show, creating a character who is both egotistical but aware of his massive ego. Despite his lack of consideration for other people’s feelings, he’s still charming.
The kind desk clerk Rachel, played by Mila Kunis, sets Peter up in a room he cannot afford, where he spends several days crying. The two characters I’ve seen, or heard, Kunis play on TV, Jackie on “That 70’s Show” and Meg on “Family Guy” have been soul-crushingly annoying, but she does a great job of creating someone the audience can root for.
When Peter ventures out of his room, he encounters the following group of guys who make his trip more interesting: the stoner surf teacher Chuck, played by Paul Rudd, the Aldous-idolizing waiter Matthew, played by Jonah Hill, and the honeymooning, Christian husband Darald, played by Jack McBrayer of “30 Rock.”For those who disliked Hill’s lack of volume control in “Superbad,” you’ll be happy to know he’s quieted down a bit for this role, which I think greatly accentuates his comedic timing.
Unlike some of the other movies that have the Apatow name attached, this movie doesn’t try to bat you over the head with joke after joke after joke. There’s room to breathe here, and it serves the movie well. I’ll probably try and make some time and go see it again this week, it was that great.
The movie got No. 2 over the weekend, and it’s a bummer that the Jackie Chan/ Jet Li flick got all the money from little kids sneaking in to see this movie, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is rated R for sexual content, language and Jason Segel’s penis.
