The premise of The 40 Year-Old Virgin is plastered in bold type on posters; it revels in humor that is by turns scatological, homophobic and racially charged, and it even manages to squeeze in a 5th Dimension song before the end.
I'm still amazed at how The 40 Year-Old Virgin is not only the funniest movie of the year, but one of the best. What a pleasure it is to see a revival of the smart but bawdy humor of There's Something About Mary.
Steve Carell stars as the title character, Andy Stitzer, a gentle and polite guy who works in a Best Buy-esque electronics store and has tentative friendships with three guys (Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Romany Malco), whose only bond with Andy is their job.
One night, Andy subs for a poker game with his coworkers and finds himself in an interesting dilemma once the men begin telling sex stories: Do I launch into a false encounter where I describe a woman's breasts as being like sandbags
or do I admit I'm 40 and have never done the deed?
Andy chooses the former, but the sandbag comment tips the guys off and the movie begins a search for the woman who will take Andy's innocence.
Most comedies feature a dozen scenes attempting to be funny where maybe half succeed and one is hilarious (i.e. Wedding Crashers). Director Judd Apatow, however, pulls off a stunning feat -I'm hard-pressed to find an un-funny sequence, and more often than not, the film has the ability to send any viewer to the floor in stitches. The movie's highly publicized, actual chest-waxing sequence comes to mind.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin is a good movie because it does envelope-pushing comedy and does it well. But it's a great movie because of Carell's award-worthy performance.
Carell, who previously made a name for himself scene-stealing in Bruce Almighty and Anchorman communicates innocence and tenderness with astonishing authenticity. An actor like Jim Carrey would have played Andy like a bumbling idiot who deserves to never have gotten laid; Carell plays him as a great guy who just never got around to it.
There's an early scene where Carell is speaking to Dave (Rudd) over lunch, and he says, You know this is the first time we've talked for more than
like
30 seconds. It's really nice. And it's heartbreaking.
Come for the gut-busting humor; stay for the moving story that develops into maybe one of the five best films of the year.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin is currently playing at the Athena and Movies 10 -Nelsonville.
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Matt Burns
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