Funny People (2009)

Directed by: Judd Apatow | 146 minutes | comedy | Actors: Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Aubrey Plaza, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, RZA, Aziz Ansari, Torsten Voges, Allan Wasserman, Rod Man, Wayne Federman, Mike O’Connell James Taylor, Nicole Ari Parker, Nydia McFadden, Andy Dick, Charles Fleischer, Nicol Paone, George Coe, Budd Friedman, Monty Hoffman, Carol Leifer, Paul Reiser, Sarah Silverman, Eminem, Ray Romano, Justin Long

The Apatow clique is not as well known and loved in the Netherlands as it is in America and the same goes for Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler. The Netherlands is not an ‘Adam Sandler country’, according to distributors, which makes it difficult to market a film like ‘Funny People’. Which of course does not mean that the film is not good, let alone that the Apatow clique is not good, on the contrary. It is and remains incomprehensible that they do not enjoy the fame in the Netherlands that the quality of their work deserves.

Every movie Apatow or Rogen has anything to do with advertises, “from the guys that brought you ‘The 40-Year-Old Virgin’ and ‘Knocked Up’.” That’s a bit silly, but these are the films that have been seen by quite a few people in the Netherlands and that for many turned out to be ‘actually quite okay’. This applies to a lesser extent to ‘Superbad’ and ‘Pineapple Express’, with the former making up for it a bit in the video store, and the latter barely hitting the shelves, let alone the cinema. Which suckers actually determine that? But okay, maybe there’s an understandable explanation, something like this: Movies that Apatow has to deal with (he writes them, or produces and/or directs them) are actually too well-crafted to really fit into the typical comedy genre, for that matter. there are too many subtle layers, the characters are not flat enough and the plots are just not cliché enough.

On the other hand, we are also not dealing with visual masterpieces, fast editing (or everything very sober), or hip music (or no music at all) or other cinematic inventions that make the films innovative cinema, or a typical independent low-budget (because they aren’t) genre. In any case, the films are difficult to place in the Netherlands.

And as for Adam Sandler, for lovers of quality cinema, here’s a reference to ‘Punch Drunk Love’ by ‘Magnolia’ director PT Anderson, in which he plays the part of his life. So he can, absolutely. He just needs to work with the right people, admittedly. And he found it in ‘Funny People’: the Apatow clique. His role may not be as brilliant and idiosyncratic as in ‘Punch Drunk Love’, but it’s spot on and because he actually plays a large part of his own life, he comes out very well.

Like the rest, everything about this movie is just right. The cast, the humor, the seriousness, everything flows through and over each other at a pleasant pace, not too fast, not too slow; no gaps, no misses and some memorable scenes. Everything fulfills its role as desired, unnoticed and therefore at its best, like the music for example: beautiful songs, in the right amount, in the right place, but never intrusive. Everything actually goes so unnoticed, so naturally, it goes as it goes and you are included in it and at the end you go home with a satisfied feeling. A feeling that life still has meaning, thanks to the content of the story, but also thanks to the cinematography you witnessed. Do you know what makes this film (like many Apatow films) hip and innovative? It is part of a new movement, the ‘funny realism’, in which people are always looking for their real nature, which is always different than they thought, more nuanced than they thought, with Seth Rogen, subway man number one, as the figurehead. of the new flow. Recurring theme here too: friendship, or rather: interpersonal relationships in general and love and friendship in particular, again nicely worked out, never black and white.

The humor puts the drama into perspective, while both are equal partners, just as it should be in real life. Funny realism, with a touch of romantic thinking, or call it a positive world view. This is evolution of cinema, evolution of the human mind, so well written that it seems as if it was not written at all. And the actors feel so good about each other because they belong, they know what story is being told here. Oh, what can we learn from here in the Netherlands, in the field of comedy, such as: jokes never have to be superfluous, as long as they are placed in the right context and performed by the right people at the right time. Well, sounds easier than it is. The fact is, and ‘Funny People’ proves that once again, that they are really a bit further in America than here in the Netherlands, both in scenario and in execution. Glad we can just enjoy it and hopefully learn something from it.