This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

Director Judd Apatow has made a quite different film — both narratively, stylistically and tonally — than those that recently perched him squarely among Hollywood vaulted royalty (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up). He shows much greater depth here than he has ever shown before and if not all of Funny People works, who of us matured into adulthood without first struggling though some growing pains?

Funny People focuses on the lives of two comedians, the successful star George Simmons (Adam Sandler) and the starving artist Ira Wright (Seth Rogen). George is a multi-millionaire with a string of stupid but successful movies and an empty mansion to show for it. Ira sleeps on his more successful friends’ (Jason Schwartzman and Jonah Hill) couch and works in a deli by day. When George discovers he is dying of a rare blood disorder, he hires Ira to be his personal assistant. Together the two confront the inevitable. That is until George is given a second chance at life. But what will he do with that gift: make things right with his ex-girlfriend, now soccer mom Laura (Leslie Mann) or continue down the same selfish, indulgent and narcissistic path that that made the greatest challenge of his life also his most lonely?

Trying to determine who is the main character in Funny People is like trying to pin the tail on the donkey while drunk and blindfolded, a feat made all the more difficult given a cavalcade of cameos. Sandler, who has ventured into drama briefly before (Punch Drunk Love) is terrific as a man whose life is consumed by superficiality. Many viewers, however, will find themselves in a love/hate relationship with Seth Rogen. In some scenes he displays fine acting chops and in others is easily the weakest link of the cast. Much of this dilemma lies in the arc he was written — the simple fact of the matter is that Ira isn’t all that funny. At least not at first. But after the initial glance, it becomes obvious that if he were good from the outset, he wouldn’t be the everyman through whose eyes we were expected to view this world. Ira changes the most as the film progresses, both professionally and personally. The others we leave in various states of transition. Some of those others are the surprisingly comical Eric Bana and the scrumptious Leslie Mann who at last gets equal billing with the boys. There is a bad guy in Funny People, albeit only briefly, but he’s not who you think.

Funny People may be the most unusual (and longest) comedy you will ever see. A fascinating film by anyone’s estimation, it goes to dark places often enough that it cannot help but be pervasively bittersweet and omnipresently melancholy. While there is more than enough vulgarity here to satisfy the most ardent Apatow fan, this hybrid rings astonishingly authentic in both the laughter and the tears, never going as far into blue territory as its predecessors.

That this is Apatow’s deepest and most personal film is reflected in his cinematography — tight close-ups that generate far more intimacy with his subjects than the conventional manner in which he’s composed his previous projects. He has included scenes of evocative beauty, as astonishing for their power as for their simplicity. (Some of the most effective are decades old footage of an adolescent Sandler, already showing the comedic bravado that would one day make him famous). Apatow has also managed to inject his trademark heart, coming nearest this time to coxing real tears.

It is a shame then that something this smart and true should careen off the tracks in the third act. Never a particularly spontaneous or even consistent film, Funny People ultimately recovers, but much of the magic is lost. What was far more profound and genuine than you ever thought to give it credit for, suddenly goes broad, embracing more slapstick than sentimentality. Often lethargic, Funny People may be Apatow’s most candid and self-reflexive film, but it is also his most problematic.

© Copyright 2009 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.