'This is 40' movie review

The last movie I will probably see in theatres this year is the Judd Apatow dramedy This is 40, a spin-off the 2009 hit Knocked Up with its supporting characters Peter and Debbie filling the slot of the main characters. Now I like Judd Apatow movies and I've enyoyed pretty much every movie that has any or more members of the so-called modern frat pack in it (Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Will Ferell, Zach Galifianakis...), so I was looking forward to this. And was it funny? Yes, yes it was. Was it overlong, poorly paced and unsteadily dramatic? Fuck yeah. But first things first. The acting is solid, Paul Rudd is his usual funny-himself and Leslie Mann, an actress who seems similar, but on a second tought didn't actually play in any other movie I saw before is very likeable and just generally does her job well.

The movie is actually very funny. It has that typical Judd Apatow humor that pretty much everyone, including me loves, but contrary to his previous directed or produced movies, it's overfilled with drama. Sure, none of his movies is a complete comedy (if that is even possible?), but This Is 40 just takes the word "dramedy" to a whole new level. It has these scenes, which are completely comedic, rare ones, that are completely dramatic and a lot of some, which just try to overlap the two and in some cases suceed, and in some cases don't. I'm not a huge fan of family-drama movies or whatever, so I didn't particularly enyoy these dramatic scenes, but they are (as far as I know, I'm 14), a pretty realistic depiction of marriage, having kids and adult life in general, from what I see from my parents and other grown-ups. But the whole movie is fucking 2 hours and 15 minutes long, as it should have been at least half an hour less. It's basically like this collection of hilarious comedic scenes and semi-enyoyable drama scenes weirdly knit together into a movie.

 Like a depiction of the 40's, but not like in Marley & Me, where it takes on at least a whole decade, but instead focuses just on these two weeks or something. It doesn't even actually have a story, just a bunch of subplots, which try to cover up each other, and none of them really shine. You have Pete's financial problems, Debbie's general 40+ woman problems, her lost father, his money-begging father, their rebellious teenage daughter, their typical younger daughter, usual problems and some unusual ones. Instead, they have a fight again, and when you think this is the depressing, downfall part of the film, they fight again and then something happens (nothing much, just avoiding possible spoilers, but it's not really that kind of a movie) and then it just ends. You just feel like that happy, get-along part would go somewhere there. But nothing really like happens. I mean, it does, but...I think ya know what I mean. There is this part, where Pete and Debbie go on a vacation and get all wild and stuff, and you just see, that this part should have gone at the end.  Otherwise, I have made this *creative* graph, depicting pacing and the general "movie rhythm", to rightfully describe the film's general flaw.

Total rating: 6 / 10

So what did you think of This is 40? Did you like it/dislike it, why? What's your favourite Judd Apatow movie? Comment below, let me know!