This Is 40 is an incredibly depressing movie that is not really funny. I love a good, raunchy comedy as much as anyone, but when it’s raunchy and not funny, it becomes dumb. I say this with lots and lots of love for director Judd Apatow. Apatow has written and directed two of the funniest movies of all time (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up). He has also helped produce some of the other major comedies of the last decade, including Superbad, Step Brothers, Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Still, this is just the fourth movie he is directed, and one of those, Funny People, was anything but funny. This Is 40 should have been a big hit. Apatow is talented enough to make a movie surrounding this topic into something funny. But ultimately, This Is 40 is a failure. I have yet to talk to someone who has seen this movie and said, “I loved it and can’t wait to see it again.” I’ve heard, “I didn’t like that.” I’ve heard, “I saw it, and I’m glad I saw it, but I wouldn’t watch it again.” My thought on the movie was, “I saw it, and I’m not sure that I’m glad I saw it because, being near 40, I found parts of it to be too real and parts of it to be not real.” I’ll try to explain.

This movie is described as the “sort of” sequel to knocked up. The extremely talented Paul Rudd (I Love You, Man, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy) and Leslie Mann (The Change-Up, Funny People) reprise their roles as Pete and Debbie, the “adult” couple in Knocked Up. In actuality, it’s not a sequel at all. I almost forgot Rudd and Mann were even in Knocked Up. What’s worse is that Rudd is a surrogate for Apatow in This Is 40. Mann is Apatow’s wife in real life, and the two daughter’s in the movie are Apatow’s daughters in real life too. There is a great ensemble of side characters, including Albert Brooks, Jason Segel, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Chris O’Dowd, and Melissa McCarthy. They do a great job. Rudd does a pretty good job. Mann does a pretty good job too. But it always feels like a movie. Often, it’s hard to tell if it’s a comedy or a drama, but it never feels real (to me). I get that some of the issues are real and experienced by many couples, including those approaching 40. The new health issues and trips to the doctors for routine checkups that aren’t very pleasant are normal. The financial stresses are normal. The lack of intimacy because of time and other constraints is normal. The issues between husband and wife after a 15-year marriage are normal.

The problems that Pete and Debbie are having with their children are normal. The problems that each of them is having with their fathers seem like they could be fairly normal. The biggest problem I had was that thoughts of infidelity were never brought up. There aren’t even any thoughts of being attracted to other people. I’m a little jaded in this regard, but it is 2013, and if this movie is true to itself, this issue needs to be brought up too. This movie is already a downer in many regards, so why not add one more issue that might even be more realistic than the others? I think it sucks that we are often more attracted to people weren’t with than people we are to the people we are with, but that seems to be a fact of life. So it should be put in the forefront and addressed like these other issues.

Pete and Debbie love each other very much. I don’t feel like their marriage is ever really on the rocks (that claim is implied in Knocked Up). So if their marriage is doing fine, why should we feel like they can’t work out these other issues? It should be these other stresses in their lives that negatively impact them so much that it affects their marriage in a way that causes them to worry about it. Turning 40 should add to it. But it doesn’t. They are just issues they will be able to work out because they never talk about it affecting their lives as a couple. They talk about wanting to be happier in their lives, but, again, there is never a sense that everything will not be okay. Apatow wants us to cringe. He wants us to laugh. He wants us to think he’s telling us a great and meaningful story. But really, we don’t do any of that. Instead, we think that these people are approaching an age that is scaring them, and while everything isn’t perfect, everything WILL end up okay because it’s a Judd Apatow comedy.

I don’t think anybody needs to see this movie. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t like it. I never wanted to turn it off, and it interested me. Yet, my life, and yours too, probably have enough issues. And sometimes, many of us don’t believe everything will be okay. What’s the point in watching a movie with characters with similar issues but never really believing anything we see is real while also knowing that everything will be okay for the major parties? We never get emotionally invested in the characters. We don’t get emotionally invested in the characters in Apatow’s other movies either (okay, maybe Steve Carell’s character in The 40-Year-Old Virgin), but those are hilarious comedies. This Is 40 is not a hilarious comedy.

Plot 8/10
Character Development 6.5/10
Character Chemistry 6/10
Acting 7.5/10
Screenplay 6.5/10
Directing  5/10
Cinematography 5/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 7/10
Universal Relevance 8/10
67.5%

Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie

• Knocked Up
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin
• Date Night
• The King of Staten Island
• Crazy, Stupid, Love.