Friday, April 18, 2008

Movie review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

By Alex Bentley

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Peter Bretter has spent six years idolizing his girlfriend, television star Sarah Marshall. He's the guy left holding her purse in paparazzi photos and accidentally omitted from acceptance award speeches. But his world is rocked when she dumps him and Peter finds himself alone. After an unsuccessful bout of womanizing and an on-the-job nervous breakdown, he sees that not having Sarah may just ruin his life. To clear his head, Peter takes an impulsive trip to Oahu, where he is confronted by his worst nightmare: his ex and her tragically hip new British-rocker boyfriend, Aldous, are sharing his hotel. But, as he torments himself with the reality of Sarah's new life, he finds relief in a flirtation with Rachel, a beautiful resort employee whose laid-back approach tempts him to rejoin the world. He also finds relief in several hundred embarrassing, fruity cocktails.

Source: Cinema Source

• Showtimes and more on Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Judd Apatow, the brains/muscle behind such comedy hits as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad, has established quite the trend: Produce/write/direct a successful film, take a supporting actor from that film and install him as the star in your next film, and repeat. Apatow started this formula with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, taking Steve Carell from sidekick to star in Virgin, doing the same for Seth Rogen with Knocked Up, then doing the same for Jonah Hill in Superbad (the blueprint wasn’t quite as successful for John C. Reilly, co-star of Talladega Nights, and his starring turn in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story).

The latest beneficiary of the trend is Jason Segel, who has one of the longest histories with Apatow as their relationship goes back to when he was on Freaks and Geeks, the acclaimed TV show that Apatow wrote, directed, and produced. Segel, who also had a supporting role in Knocked Up, takes center stage in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a film which he also wrote. He plays Peter Bretter, a composer who writes the atmospheric music for the CSI-ish show of his girlfriend, the eponymous Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell).

Peter bumping into Sarah and new boyfriend Aldous Snow. AWK-ward.

Soon after the film begins, their relationship is history, in quite possibly the most humiliating way one can imagine. Peter falls into a deep funk, a mood that is alternately improved or continued by the support of his brother Brian (SNL’s Bill Hader). One of Brian’s suggestions is to take a vacation to Hawaii. Once there, however, who should Peter immediately run into but … Sarah … with a new boyfriend … who happens to be a world-famous rock star.

As they’re both staying at the same hotel, it’s next to impossible for Peter to avoid Sarah. However, several hotel employees try to help him get his mind off her, including Rachel (Mila Kunis), a beautiful hotel clerk, Kunu (Paul Rudd), a surfing instructor who appears to have taken more than a few wipeouts, and various other staff and guests. It doesn’t take a genius to see what direction the movie is headed in, especially when one of Peter’s helpers is as comely as Rachel.

Like Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is chock-full of sexual jokes tempered by the inherent appeal of several characters. Marshall is sometimes sly with its jokes; at various points, different characters mutter jokes under their breath or pile on a crude comment on top another funny line, so that it almost gets lost in the shuffle. Of course, just as often they make no attempt to hide the vulgarity, whether it’s with uncomfortable nudity or unexpected revelations.

Nothing like a beautiful woman to help you get over ... a beautiful woman.

But Segel is immensely sympathetic as Peter, giving even his mistakes the whiff of innocence and kindness. In fact, what makes the film work overall is that every main character is completely believable. Sarah has no right to expect any compassion to come her way, but Bell’s performance gives the audience permission to come around to her side a bit. Rachel could’ve been that perfect vacation girl where nothing goes wrong, but Kunis gives her both an edge and a vulnerability that makes her well-rounded. And Russell Brand could’ve played Aldous Snow, Sarah’s rock star boyfriend, as your stereotypical pompous blowhard, but he’s so cool that he snares you in his web despite your misgivings.

If there’s one problem with Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it’s that it seems to hold back a bit too much. It has some absolutely hilarious moments, but then slows down the pace more than is necessary. A similarly themed film, The Heartbreak Kid (vacation at a exotic locale, love triangle, sexual jokes aplenty), kept the pedal to the metal without regard to the softer side of things. Maybe Marshall shouldn’t have gone that far; some sweetness is necessary to balance things out (Kid had next to none of that). But it also could’ve pushed the limits more than Segel seemed to want to do. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is still one of the funniest movies of the year so far; it just could've been that much funnier.

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