Judd Apatow has a unique bead on his audience. Whether you want to say he makes chick flicks masquerading as guy flicks or vice-versa, the director/writer/producer can attribute the meteoric rise of his Hollywood star to a near filmic paradox -- romantic comedies with a largely male fan-base. Equally surprisingly, he accomplished this feat while remaining a critical golden child. I watch his films expecting something to combust. I wait for the raunchiness to subsume the emotional sincerity, the dick jokes to devour the cultural wit, or the "cool dumpy dork gets a hot chick" shtick to finally run itself into the ground. But I have to give the guy credit. However much The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up? and now Forgetting Sarah Marshall? wobble, they make it to the other side of their respective narrative tightropes with that unique Apatow appeal intact.
Before I pump Apatow too full of praise, it's worth noting that with Sarah Marshall, the Virgin and Knocked Up writer is only producing. In Marshall, lead actor and scribe Jason Segel takes the creative driver's seat. Clearly, though, Apatow has thrown in his lot with a like-minded front man. Segel offers a script and main character very much in line with the Apatow vulgarity, wit and sincerity trifecta.
Still, Marshall is its own movie. It's actually much less hard-hitting comedically than Knocked Up or Virgin. That probably sounds like a bad thing and at times it can be, but Marshall is also more thoroughly concerned with the emotions of its characters than any previous Apatow film. Sure, the flick may open with Segel's Peter Bretter getting dumped while he's in the buff, and sure, naked dudes are pretty funny, but that's basically the scene's only gag. The interaction really orbits around Bretter's emotional upheaval, and, especially for those of us who have been on the receiving end of some dumping in the past, the breakup's feel is too bitterly accurate to be entirely hilarious.
The sentimentality is only ratcheted up as Marshall swings into its third and fourth acts. Scenes continuously crop up that are played almost entirely for their emotional resonance. If you are looking for straight comedy, all this may sound like yawn sauce, but a time when "comedies" like Meet the Spartans or Superhero Movie completely reject plot and character in favor of gags, having a nationally released comedy with some (or a lot) of emotional subtext can be pretty refreshing.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of laughs. In particular, the scenes between Bretter and Aldous Snow (Sarah Marshall's new rock star boyfriend, played by Russell Brand) keep the film from tumbling off its comedic stilts. A few of the usual Apatow crew show up (both Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd have supporting roles) to lighten the dramatic load as well. Plenty of credit should also go to Kristen Bell (Sarah Marshall herself) and Mila Kunis (the rebound girl) who, unlike so many comedic love interests, stand in as more than just pretty faces.
Things do fizzle a bit toward the end. A lot of the emotional baggage gets forced into a neatly tied gift bag, but, like I said, this is a romantic comedy. Sarah Marshall doesn't bust the genre in half, but it never originally claims that intent. The film does offer one of the most unique combinations of romance and comedy I've seen in recent memory. If anything (lame pun alert!), it certainly isn't forgettable. 3
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