About wessingleton
Location: Irving TX
Occupation: Movie Critic/Financial Services/Corporate Trainer/Speaker
Bio: Wes Singleton is a part-time movie critic residing in Irving, TX. He has a variety of different hobbies and interests, including movies, writing and running. He works full-time at a large non-profit financial services company but his real passion is movies. He has his own website, www.moviereviewsbywes.com that provides an outlet for this passion.
Posts: 41
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Forgetting Sarah Marshall is more fun than a break-up should be, just not as memorable.
Break-ups are rarely fun or comedic, but laughing can help with the pain. Maybe the new comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall will help you with that. It’s an enjoyably witty though overlong comedy from producer Judd Apatow, who scored last year with Knocked Up and Superbad. Sarah Marshall isn’t as laugh-out loud funny or relevant as his previous movies and is too meandering and talky in places. Except for a few full frontal male nudity shots, it’s actually pretty tame compared to other raunchy comedies in the genre.
A heartbroken and depressed Peter (Jason Segel of How I Met Your Mother), a modestly successful Hollywood composer, takes off to Hawaii for a much needed vacation after his five-year romance to TV actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars and Heroes) comes to a quick end. When he arrives in Hawaii, he finds Sarah there with her new boyfriend, British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Even more devastated than before, he has to find things on the island to keep his mind off Sarah. He meets and romances the lovely hotel desk clerk Rachel (That 70’s Show Mila Kunis), who has her own relationship issues. In the meantime, Sarah’s rocky relationship with her new hip musician boyfriend has her wondering whether she made the right choice, leaving Peter in the unenviable position of having to choose between two lovely women.
Sarah Marshall provides sporadic laughs here and there, but it lacks the sharp writing and directing talent of producer Apatow, who leaves the directing and writing to others here. Segel, an old Apatow pal, stars and makes his writing debut, while TV writer Nicholas Stoller makes his directorial debut. Segel and Stoller’s inexperience adds up to an overly familiar story and lack of characterization, not to mention the tightening of many scenes to pick up the pacing a bit, and sheds no new light on relationships.
Segel makes a relaxed schluby everyday joe, though a very bland one, and not strong enough to carry a film yet. He cries way, way too much over a girl that’s obviously not worth it. Segel works better on the small screen of Mother, where’s he able to better play off his castmates. He will have people talking about his full frontal nudity scenes (and yes, he shows everything, if you’re wondering), which seem added strictly for shock value and little for story value.
The pretty Kunis is the real bright spark, giving Sarah Marshall a bouncy energy as Peter’s new love Rachel. The equally lovely Bell is easy on the eyes but less successful at conveying Sarah’s shallow motivations and choices. The script’s underlying premise seems at times inexplicably contrived (how does Peter happen to show up at the same hotel as Sarah?).
The most entertaining moments of Sarah Marshall come from a nutty supporting cast, which is steadily becoming the same type of Mel Brooks-ian type of ensemble that worked on his films. Among the Apatow regulars: Jonah Hill (Superbad) shows up as a brown-nosing waiter-wanna-be musician; Paul Rudd (Knocked Up) as an over-the-hill surfer dude who changes people’s names to Hawaiian names by using the internet, and Saturday Night Live’s Bill Hader as Peter’s acid-tongued, computer-loving stepbrother.
The Office’s Jack MacBrayer steals his scenes as part of a church-going, virginal couple learning about sex on their honeymoon (“Why did God have to put the playground next to the waste area?” he bemoans), along with Brit Russell Brand as Sarah’s rocker boyfriend. When asked if he listened to a demo tape, he says “I was gonna listen to that, but then, um, I just carried on living my life.”
Both Knocked Up and Superbad had many more laugh-out loud funny moments than Sarah Marshall, and this film, like those previous Apatow productions, lacks efficiency and could be about 20 minutes shorter. It’s too talky and meanders in different directions, particularly a draggy climax (except for the Dracula puppet rock opera thing that Peter stages at the end, which is the funniest part of the movie).
As far as break-ups go, this isn’t terrible, and as far as movies go, Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn’t bad either, but it could’ve been more memorable given the talent involved.
