The 40 Year Old Virgin
It would have been very easy for Judd Apatow and Steve Carell to turn “The 40 Year Old Virgin” into a crass, mean-spirited movie about late bloomers. The best thing they did in their hilarious, heart-felt screenplay was to make Andy, Carell’s titular character, into a genuinely good guy who just needs to come out of his shell. The characters in the film find Andy to be a pretty easy target for being 40 years old, and never having had sex, but the audience doesn’t, because Carell and Apatow respect him enough to give him a heart that makes him value love over making love. That’s a big part of what distinguished it from “Wedding Crashers,” the other big raunchy comedy from the summer of 2005, and part of why Apatow’s movies, both as a director and producer, have stood above the rest of the raunch pack for the past 10 years.
One of the big things we’ve seen over the last two decades in home video releases has been the advent of the “unrated version” for comedies especially. There are several times when the added content makes a funny movie less funny, like I noticed on the unrated “Dodgeball” and “Talladega Nights” DVDs, but sometimes, the movie only gets better. “The 40 Year Old Virgin” is the definitive example of that for me; Apatow and Universal added 17 minutes more to an already two hour film, and it’s even funnier to watch. I can never imagine watching the theatrical version again.
Back to the film itself, though, and a bit about myself. While the film made me laugh like a hyena when it came out in 2005, there is a part of me that identified with Andy, and really appreciated what Carell and Apatow did with the character. You see, I have very much been a late bloomer like Andy is. I’ve been in long-term relationship for a couple of years now, and we’re going to be married in a few months, but until then, dating and women were a bit difficult for me. I didn’t really know how to get to that first step of even dating. Before I entered the relationship I’m in now, I had had a few dates, but nothing really materialized. Now that I’m older, I realize that I just wasn’t ready, mentally or emotionally. I had to be comfortable with myself as a single before I was ready to be in a couple, and when that happened, my entire perspective on dating and what mattered changed for the better. That is the journey Andy is going on in this film, although unfortunately, he’s been so sheltered in his thinking on the subject that when his co-workers try to get him out of his comfort zone, he gets some of the most comedically absurd dating advice imaginable. Ten years ago, even before I understood dating myself, it was absurd, and now, it’s even more so. The key is, Apatow and Carell think so, as well, and that’s part of why the film works; this plays things honest while also ramping it up to make it work as comedy.
That the film is filled with comedic talent, all of whom make the most of their time on-screen, is not a surprise at all– Paul Rudd, Jane Lynch and Leslie Mann are the people we knew before the film came out, and they all bring their A-game, but it’s the people we didn’t quite know at the time that really make this film hilarious. Those people are Seth Rogen, Romany Malco, Elizabeth Banks, Kat Dennings, Mindy Kaling and Jonah Hill, and each of them steal the scenes they are in brilliantly, and since then, they’ve each made their way into bigger and better things. The heart of the movie, though, is Carell and Catherine Keener, whom Apatow wisely cast as Trish, the divorcee and mother of three who catches Andy’s eye, and really inspires the most change in Andy. Casting Keener, best known for her dramatic work (though already an Oscar nominee for “Being John Malkovich”) was an inspired choice, as she projects a maturity that’s lacking in the rest of the characters, including Andy. You never would expect her to be a romantic lead in a comedy, but she is superb in her role opposite Carell, as they dance around the titular elephant in the room while also making a plausible romantic pairing. Movies have always strived to give audiences an on-screen representation of what they should want in terms of romance in real life. The funny thing is? More than pretty much any other rom-com ever has, Apatow, Carell and Keener do that– after this film, I wanted a relationship like what Andy and Trish did. There’s something about what this couple goes through that just spoke to me, and now, I feel like I have something like this for myself. I can live with that.
