Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Just in time for Valentine's Day! Here's a movie about breaking up with someone and how awkward it can be. It's also a terrific movie about turning a break-up into a positive thing by boning Mila Kunis. So if you're happy and with someone on this Valentine's Day, good for you. Try not to rub your bliss in other peoples faces, OK, jerk? If you're alone today, don't worry... There are plenty of people out there in the same boat as you, my friend. And they aren't all fuggo's, either. My wife and I decided this year that since money was tighter than Matsuflex's t-shirts, we'd just get each other a card. But we also share the same awful sense of humor and decided to get each other the worst Valentine's Day cards we could find. So I got Jessi a Forbidden Planet card that looks exactly like the one on the left and it says, "Hey Valentine. Nice planets. Are you sure they're FORBIDDEN?" And if you think mine is terrible, the one she got for me features a donkey on the front and a tag that says, "If loving you is a crime..." (now open the card) "...then throw my happy ass in jail!" The best part is that when you open this card, it becomes a 3-D paper jail with the smiling donkey inside. God, I love my wife.

So, for Valentine's Day, I think this is probably the perfect movie, if you're in a relationship or not. And if you're not in one, you can take after an old teacher of mine and constantly refer to today as "V-D." Poor, lonely old lady...

FORGETTING   SARAH   MARSHALL

Theatrical Release: April 2008

 

Genre: Comedy

 

Sub-genre: Judd Apatow! 

 

Starring: Some of Apatow's All-Stars, (no Seth Rogen, though) like Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader, and Paul Rudd. Also included, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis (the voice of Meg on Family Guy), some cameos by Billy Baldwin and Jason Bateman (Teenwolf 2) and someone you've probably never heard of, Russell Brand. But you'll know who he is after this movie, trust me...

 

The overview: Hot and successful TV star, Sarah Marshall, breaks up with her naked-at-the-time boyfriend, Peter, who is a marginally successful studio musician. He turns into a sobbing, cereal-eating mess until his brother convinces him to take a trip to a honeymoon resort in Hawaii as a single guy. Letting alone that this is the worst possible way I could imagine to get over someone, his ex-girlfriend just happens to be at this same resort with her awesome new famous British boyfriend, Aldous. Awkwardness abounds, of course, which is then multiplied ten-fold with the introduction of Rachel, a smoking hot customer service rep who works at the resort. Fights erupt, boobs are seen, Jonah Hill makes some weed jokes, and puppets sing vampire love songs.

 

To the left is Sarah Marshall. The premise of Forgetting Sarah Marshall is implied by the title. The individual who needs to forget her is her ex-boyfriend, Peter, played by Jason Segel, who also wrote this movie based on his own experiences. This reason alone might be why this movie is so good. No, I mean this movie is really good. Let's first explore how the hell Jason Segel can play such an ideal Every Guy. His character experiences (again, Peter) all the emotions a person goes through during a break-up, which most people I know can relate to. And if you're not emotionally mature enough to have been where Peter is during this movie, you definitely won't enjoy it. You can watch Peter go through the emotional stages of grief after his relationship ends, and while I'm not sure if this was intentional on Segel's part, it works very well and as I said, most guys in the 21st century can relate. There seems to be a heavy focus, though, on Peter sobbing uncontrollably into his mammoth bowl of cereal. And while most people have found themselves in that humiliating predicament before, it happens just one too many times in this movie and I found myself saying, "OK, dude. Get up off the couch." But I think this lends to the relate-ability of the movie. Because while we've all been there before, more times we've found ourselves being around that guy. And you just wanna tell him/her to stop crying, realize that there are other sexy fish in the sea, and they should go somewhere to get away from it all for a while. In this case, however, when Peter decides to get away, the unthinkable (and unlikely) happens. He finds himself staying at a Hawaiian resort where Sarah and her new ass-hat boyfriend are staying as well.

To truly enjoy this movie, you have to just ignore that last part. There's no way on heaven or on earth, that a person would have luck so bad that they'd pick the one resort in the world, at the exact same time, that their ex is staying at. I call this the "Planetary Alignment" theory, since it's so far-fetched that the stars and the planets and all the heavens would have to align just perfectly for something this outrageous to really happen. But it's Hollywood, so you suspend your disbelief. Add to the mix the highly unlikely (nay - impossible) chance that the customer service rep is  1) Hot... 2) Single... 3) Into sobbing losers who appear to have booked a stalkers vacation package. This, of course, is Mila Kunis's character, Rachel. Pretend that these things could really happen and this will be an enjoyable movie. 

After Peter realizes Sarah and her new British rock star boyfriend get to be his resort buddies, he decides to tough it out and stay, which I wouldn't think was a good idea, even if I were really lonely and really drunk. The awkwardness of some scenes is so gut-wrenching, and Peter's tall, slightly uncoordinated features really endure him to you, the viewer. He obviously loves Sarah but a part of him knows he has to move on, and if he can do it in his current situation, he'll be a stronger person for it. I laughed so hard at this movie, I can't believe more people don't talk about it. Sarah's new boyfriend is a pompous English rock star named Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) who treats sex like it was an Olympic event and sings his awful pop love song, "Inside Of You" to Sarah in front of Peter. Aldous is probably the best character I've seen in a movie in quite some time and gets to say the best lines. You have to watch the gag reel and the outtakes on the Special Features of your DVD to hear some of his improvised lines. He just wants casual sex with as many as he can, he's unapologetic for it, and of course he's the coolest guy in the movie. Jonah Hill's character even has a homoerotic man-crush on him.

So, now you have this odd love square thing happening. Sarah and Aldous still roam the resort, having freaky gymnast sex in their room, while Peter and Rachel get a little more intimate over his time there. Of course, Rachel helps pull Peter out of his funk, but I'd like to stop here and offer some insight as to why these characters are so great. Peter is believable because of his vulnerability. Jason Segel had to have been playing himself straight, he's just too normal. Now Rachel also enjoys the Cool Hot Chick Factor, which isn't a common occurrence. There are lots of cool chicks out there, plenty of hot chicks to be found as well, but it's almost an anomaly to find a hot chick who's incredibly cool. Some other examples would be Cameron Diaz from There's Something About Mary, Donna the Redhead from That 70's Show, and my wife. So owing to the fact that Rachel is a cool hot chick, you invest yourself a little more emotionally in what happens to Peter and Rachel. If she were just some pretty, shiny, high maintenance, run-of-the-milk girl, it wouldn't be the same. This movie was very well written. You can see the real emotional experiences coming through in the characters and the actors. 

Also, there's a minor story bubbling just under the surface of the film... Peter has spent years working on a Dracula musical. With puppets. Initially, this sounds crazy. Who would wanna see this, right? But wait until you hear him sing Dracula's Lament! Rachel gets a little liquid confidence in her and pushes Peter onto the stage at her local Hawaiian ba'ar and I thought it was about the coolest thing I'd ever heard. At the end of the film, there's actually a 10 minute production of Peter's play featuring Jim Henson Workshop puppets. It's friggin' awesome. I'm waiting around to hear more about this Muppet production, hoping it's been turned into a feature length movie... I'll keep you posted. And here's an interesting fact: Jason Segel had actually been working on Dracula's Lament, the puppet musical, for years prior to writing this screenplay. He incorporated this as Peter's hobby to make a neat character trait.

This is just a hilarious movie. The funny lines aren't relegated to one character, they're not slapstick and stupid, they seem to come from real experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and I'd recommend it to most anyone, unless it was for some church group. 

Overall: 9 out of 10. I really don't remember if I've ever disliked a Judd Apatow movie. Did he do The Rocker? Cuz I didn't see that but it didn't look like something I wanted to see.

 

Best Scene: For my money, hands down, it's the final scene, showcasing the full puppet presentation of Dracula's Lament. I looked everywhere for a clip of this scene to show and now, after nearly a solid hour of looking, I come up empty-handed. Seriously?! 

Dammit, I just tried searching the fringes of the internet and still I got nothing! I even looked on Dutch websites. Do you have any idea how impossible it is to interpret Dutch?! You can't tell me that it's not pirated somewhere on some 9th grade nerd's laptop in Moscow, Idaho, but I can't post a copy for the people to see here? There's not even an image of the Dracula muppet to copy-n-paste. Nowhere. That's crap, man... Oh well. To make up for it, here's Mila Kunis and her cleavage. You're welcome...

 

What my wife said: (upon seeing Jason Segel's junk) "At least he's got a big one. Maybe that's why he was OK with doing the full frontal thing."

 

Who would enjoy this movie: Frat boys. My dad. Your drinking buddies. Maybe your wife/girlfriend, if she's cool. It's a good movie to watch as a couple, since it brings up a lot of scenarios and you can get a feel for how the other person really feels about morally questionable situations. But it's not for everyone. Only people with a sense of humor. And usually if someone has to defend whether or not they have a sense of humor, they don't.

 

Watch it if you like: Superbad, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Freaks & Geeks, Pineapple Express. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what movies are related.

 

Next in the Q: The Happening, which happened to suck. 

 

**Thanks to Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and IMDB for various bits of reference**