By Terri Schwartz
Ugly boy gets dumped by pretty girl. Ugly boy goes to distant location to try to get over pretty girl. Ugly boy meets prettier girl and falls in love. Pretty girl decides she wants ugly boy again. Insert drama here.
No, this is not the synopsis of last year’s “The Heartbreak Kid,” starring Ben Stiller. Instead, it is Judd Apatow’s newest brilliant creation, the disaster comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”
The trailers for the film say that “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is from “the guys who brought you ‘Knocked Up’ and ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin.'” However, Apatow only executive produced this movie, whereas he wrote and directed the other two. It was directed by relative newcomer Nicholas Stoller (who helped write Apatow’s TV series “Undeclared”) and was written by leading man Jason Segel.
Enter Peter Bretter (Segel), who is dating “sexy crime fighter” Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), a famous actress from a TV show reminiscent of “CSI.” The movie opens with Peter being dumped by Sarah, his girlfriend of five and a half years. He takes the break-up with a distinct lack of grace – and entirely in the nude.
Thus ensues three weeks of self-inflicted torture, until Peter’s step-brother (Bill Hader) encourages him to take a vacation to get his mind off of Sarah. Peter decides to go to Hawaii (because it was one of the places Sarah wanted to go), where he meets a sexy receptionist named Rachel (Mila Kunis), and bumps into Sarah and her new singer boyfriend, named Aldous (Russell Brand).
The movie follows through on the viewers’ expectations: Peter has many uncomfortable run-ins with Sarah and her beau, but also finds the time to hang out and fall in love with Rachel, who he finds increasingly cool and the opposite of Sarah.
However, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is an Apatow design, and therefore is the stereotypical break-up movie and more. Completing the Apatow gang are Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill playing recurring hotel staff and offering a bit of comedic relief.
The trailer for “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” highlights most of the laugh-out-loud parts of the movie, but it leaves out the intelligence that underlies the movie. Pop culture references are scattered throughout the film (an Apatow signature), and every new reference is funnier than the slapstick comedy that came before it.
There is a scene where Peter, Rachel, Sarah and Aldous are having dinner together, and Sarah brings up her only film credit. Rachel asks her if she liked the movie, and as Sarah hesitates, her boyfriend yells out, “That movie was terrible!” He starts complaining about the ludicracy of a cell phone being able to kill people, and the viewer immediately realizes that the movie Marshall allegedly starred in was recent cinematic release, “One Missed Call,” which Kristen Bell actually starred in. Peter soon joins in, and about five minutes of the film are dedicated to making fun of what a terrible premise the movie had.
The underlying mockery of crime-television is similarly evident through the clips shown of Sarah’s TV show, “Crime Scene: Scene of a Crime.” In one of the clips, Sarah discovers that the supposed murderer, who was said to masturbate after every killing, actually did not know how to masturbate. Sarah was able to discover all of this from a sample on his hand.
Similarly, Sarah’s famous rocker boyfriend is a mockery all to himself. The words to his hit song, “Inside of You,” could be the dialogue of a C-rated porno, but when he performs the song at the resort’s daily brunch, the guests’ enraptured faces make it seem as though he was singing from the Bible.
“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” takes the charm and charisma of Apatow’s previous hits and crams them into what could have been just another stupid comedy. However, just like with “Knocked Up” and “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” Apatow takes an overused and clich’eacute; comedy genre and makes it new and fresh. “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” tempts the viewer into thinking it will fall into the stereotypical traps, but avoids them by mere inches.
In case moviegoers missed the fact that “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” was funny and not just stupid, Stoller sends the message home with his ending sequence. Not to ruin the surprise, but it involves a rock opera about Dracula starring puppets. Eat that, Ben Stiller.
