Funny People

Funny People

146 Minutes

After reading Steve Martin’s recent memoir Born Standing Up, I couldn’t help but think it was a little odd that no one has really made a great film about the inner workings of the comedy world. If you go back far enough, to the beginnings of narrative cinema, there are plenty of examples of films about entertainers rising up through the ranks to make something of themselves, even before The Jazz Singer. But the terrain of the eager young comedian trying to make a name is little explored, despite the obvious potential benefits of merging comedy with the timely tradition of Cinderella stories. Maybe that’s why Judd Apatow has been such a staggering success in recent years, with a near perfect batting average over the last decade: his ideas aren’t revolutionary so much as they make you wonder why others haven’t gotten to them first.

Funny People continues Apatow’s string of successes and even drastically improves on his existing formula. The gross out elements of his first two works are more or less completely excised; the emotional subplot doesn’t feel forced, perhaps because the story at the center of the film has much in common with Apatow’s own roots. In interviews Apatow has often stated that he only wound up where is now because he was never good enough at being a comedian and in Seth Rogen’s Ira Wright, it seems Apatow has finally rewritten his own history. Wright is the young comedian at the heart of the film, awkwardly fumbling his way through nights at the local comedy club and watching as his friends keep getting the breaks he feels he deserves. So of course when fate rolls him a lucky hand in the form of a famous comedian looking to go out in a bit of glory after receiving a particularly grim prognosis, Wright seizes the moment and starts to live the life Apatow missed.

It’s to Apatow’s credit that the story doesn’t feel at all masturbatory or egotistical. Rogen manages the delicate balancing act of giving Wright the right amount of awkward social ineptitude and inspirational devotion to his craft, granting the character more nuance than might otherwise have existed. Apatow also manages to coax a warmth out of Adam Sandler that hasn’t been visible in the actor since Punch Drunk Love; Sandler’s self-destructive yet oddly embracing George Simmons goes beyond being merely an obvious rendering of Sandler himself. That Apatow and Sandler were roommates at the beginning of their careers probably helped, the two intimately familiar with what it means to be young up and comers with nothing to their name. This history also echoes in the relationship between Wright and his roommates, Leo (Jonah Hill) and Mark (Jason Schwartzman), who all have an obvious affinity towards each other as well as a fierce competitive drive.

But what makes Funny People perhaps the first great film about being a comedian isn’t the relationships or even its humor but the fierce attention to details of the craft itself. Whether it’s the moments in which comedians can’t help but subtly compete over who can get the most laughs or Wright’s constant note taking to build up material for jokes, Apatow seems keenly aware that the public’s ignorance towards the inner workings of comedy is a gold mine in itself, capable of making the little things stand out more than they should and elevating the art to the level of detailed undertaking usually left to police procedurals. The well-edited stand-up footage throughout the film continues this, building those details up so that their final results seem as triumphant as any moment in a sports film. Credit must also be given to cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, perhaps best known for Schindler’s List. Apatow has a well-noted tendency to hire cinematographers on Kaminski’s level but Funny People might be the first film of Apatow’s where the visual aesthetic has been so obvious and beneficial. Kaminski has a knack for framing actors in a way that both highlights their imperfections and revels in them, lending Sandler’s now aged features gravitas and contrasting with Rogen’s almost childish expressions.

Like Hal Ashby before him, Apatow seems to be growing more and more adept at accurately portraying what it means to be human. While his other works may have been somewhat light-hearted and often slightly immature, Funny People is adult in the best sense of the word. Hopeful without being sappy, humorous but subtle, the film perfectly balances its story of success with its message of making the most of what you have in life, delivering a work that revels in its maturity without losing sight of its goal to entertain.

by Morgan Davis