Ryan McNeil
The story begins by introducing us to Pete and Zooey (Paul Rudd and Rashida Jones). When Paul asks Zooey to marry him, she calls around to her closest friends to celebrate the news. Once it clicks that Pete hasn’t called anyone, she asks him how he’ll share the news with his friends. It’s then that we realize – Paul doesn’t have any friends. There are two guys he talks to – one co-worker and one at his fencing club – but neither are what you’d call “wicked-close”. Even his father and brother (J.K. Simmons and Andy Sandberg) aren’t that close to him…they are pretty fond of each other though.
As Pete realizes that this lack of friends is casting a questioning shadow over his personality, he decides, with Zooey’s encouragement, to try and make some new friends. The internet isn’t much help. Neither is being set up with strangers who aren’t clarified on sexual orientation. At one point Zooey’s friend Denise (Jamie Pressly) even tries to get her surly husband Barry (Jon Favreau) to invite Pete to his weekly poker game. I haven’t tried to make new friends for a while, but I’m pretty sure beating a guy’s-guy at poker and drinking contests won’t win you any new bosom companions.
Of course the moment Pete stops trying, he meets Sydney (Jason Segel). Without needing to hear the whole sorry back story, Sydney offers out a hand in friendship, perhaps because it’s just his nature. He is easy-going in a way that edges on slacker-dom, but still seems acceptable. He and Pete form a blossoming bro-mance over beer, walks on the boardwalk, and Rush songs. He becomes the buddy Pete has been missing for so long, but does their budding bro-mance have Zooey regretting what she wished for?
I LOVE YOU, MAN is a funny movie, if slightly uneven. It’s fitting that the movie wants to shine a light on the concept of a “Bro-mance”, since those are the moments that are the funniest and most interesting. When the plot turns its attention back to Pete and Zooey’s relationship, the scenes feel dull and pedestrian. Truth be told, I spent much of these scenes waiting for Sydney to show back up…or at the very least for Barry and Denise to return and wreak havoc.
The film is indeed Jason Segel’s show, who once again shows he can carry a major motion picture (sidebar: if you aren’t watching Segel in TV’s “How I Met Your Mother”, you’re truly missing out). Segel excels at getting laughs by going over the top – such as doing some hard core stage moves to Rush songs, or screaming and flailing like a manic to scare off a fight-instigating bodybuilder. But where Segel is even funnier, is when he’s giving polite and understated responses. There’s something about the courtesy in his delivery that always strikes a chord. Jokers are supposed to be snide and sarcastic; Segel’s jokes have a sincerity which is what makes them so much funnier.
Where the movie works best, is when it shows how ridiculously weird it can get for us as grown adults to make new friends. It’s one thing in school to sit down next to someone having lunch in the attempts to make a new friend…do that as an adult, and the person is likely to wonder why you’re acting so weird. When that situation happens between guys, the result is that much weirder. The movie plays it for laughs, but Paul’s attempts at making new friends from scratch as a thirty-something isn’t that far off reality.
One last thing. Last summer’s PINEAPPLE EXPRESS sparked a thought for me, and I LOVE YOU, MAN confirmed it – there is precious little more ridiculous than the sight of a grown man wearing Uggs.
I’m excited to see this. I knew it’d be no Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but Paul Rudd is the shit.