Funny People is money printer Judd Apatow’s latest directorial work.  He chose to re-team with several actors whom he’d previously worked with very successfully, most notably the two stars Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler.  The plot is that Sandler’s George is a very successful comedian who has starred in a ton of big blockbuster movies and had a dream career, and is pretty much Adam Sandler, finds out that he has a rare form of Leukemia and there’s very little chance of recovery.  Spurred on by this news he heads to a local comedy club where he catches part of Rogen’s character, Ira’s, set.  He thinks his material was pretty good and winds up hiring him to initially be a writer for him, then to be his assistant.  He lays the news on his new assistant and tells him that he must keep it to himself.

Leslie Mann as the girl who got away

Then there’s another 2+ hours of movie.  There’s a lot going on here and it’s just way too long.  So much could have easily been cut to make this half it’s length and people would be singing it’s praises right now.  First there’s the plot with George and Ira and their relationship, then there’s Ira and his career, then there’s George dealing with death, then there’s Ira’s roommates (Jason Schwartzman & Jonah Hill) and their careers and his relationships with them, then there’s Ira’s crush (played wonderfully by Aubrey Plaza), then we get into George and the girl that got away (Leslie Mann), then there’s a bunch of dynamics within her family with her husband and children.  This is too many plots.  I will say that nothing was ever confusing with all of this stuff going on, it was just a bit much.  Also the wall to wall cameos could have been seriously cut down or cut altogether.  It seems like they tried to cram as many comedians and celebrities as they could into this thing.  Although Sarah Silverman and Eminem do actually have some good moments, as well as James Taylor.

The main thing this film needs to deal with is managing expectations and I don’t think they did that very well.  I understand it’s not an easy film to market.  You have a film chocked full of comedic actors from a director/producer/writer who’s responsible for some of the biggest grossing comedies of recent years, so of course the studio tried to sell it as a comedy.  But that’s where things go awry.  Although there are funny moments, and there’s certainly jokes, this is a drama.  A serious film.  Not a comedy.  It’s a comedy in the way that real life is comedy.

The cast did a wonderful job and if you can actually make it through the fat the movie itself isn’t bad, as long as you aren’t expecting a ton of laughs.  I mentioned Aubrey Plaza, probably best known for her

Aubrey Plaza

small role on “Parks & Recreation”, does a wonderful job.  I wish she was in the movie more as her character seemed to be one of the better developed characters.  Also I wish we could have seen more of her doing stand up.  Sandler and Rogen both do good jobs.  Mostly there are so many characters that a lot of them lack any depth.

So there you have it.  In a nutshell: a too long, decent but not great drama.  If you have some time to kill it might be worth a rental.  Speaking of which you download the Unrated version of Funny People
on iTunes when it comes out on November 24th, but you can pre-order now. Or get a hard copy of the Funny People [Blu-ray] or the DVDat Amazon.