Movie Review: This is 40

A big studio film with the soul of an independent movie, and a damn good one too.

What Works: I liked this movie more than I really could have anticipated. Whereas some of Judd Apatow’s previous films (like The 40 Year-Old Virgin and the overrated Knocked Up) jumped off from a high-concept premise but gradually revealed unexpected layers of soul, this thing is nearly all mood. It’s about a couple (Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann, reprising their characters from Knocked Up) nearing, you guessed it, 40, their lives, their careers, and their marriage. All of the laughs in this movie are so true and honest it’s barely a comedy. And Leslie Mann gives the best performance of her career. I’ve never been a huge fan of hers, but she turns the usual “nagging wife” role she gets stuck with into a vulnerable and luminous woman, one you can’t help but feel for.

What Doesn’t Work: There may be a couple supporting characters too many. For every Albert Brooks or John Lithgow (fantastic as the fathers of Rudd and Mann, both with young families of their own), there are characters that aren’t really necessary like Jason Siegel’s full-of-shit personal trainer or Mann’s embezzling employee. I think they could have trimmed the supporting cast down a little, and really focused the movie on Rudd/Mann. [This might have also helped shave the running time down about ten minutes.] And sometimes the movie strains a little too hard for laughs, when it’s really best at focusing on the realer, more dramatic moments. Not to mention, why spoil the ending of “Lost” (which the oldest daughter is obsessed with)? Just…why?

What I Would Have Done Differently: Narrowed down the supporting cast (Rudd has two co-workers, an aging rocker he’s managing, a best friend, a father, 3 half-brothers, etc. and Mann has a whole roster of her own) a little and refocused the movie around the central couple, who were the highlight of Knocked Up and can more than support a film all on their own. I wouldn’t mind seeing a This is Fifty in a few years.