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Forgetting Sarah
Marshall
By Joey Magidson
Forgetting Sarah
Marshall is yet another memorable comedy by the Apatow gang
Judd Apatow seems
to keep the most talented friends. Steve Carell, Seth Rogen,
Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, and now Jason Segel; they
all have been given their time to shine. Not only is Segel the
charismatic star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but he also wrote
the film.
This is a movie for any
guy who ever moped about after getting dumped, feeling like life was
over, while knowing at least a bit in your heart that it was never meant
to be. Forgetting Sarah Marshall may not be the most hilarious of
Apatow’s projects, but it may have the most heart of any of them,
making it maybe the best of the bunch overall.
When Peter (Segel)
gets dumped by his celebrity girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell),
he goes to pieces. He tries (with hilarious results) to get on with his
life by having one night stands, crying, or sometimes both. He finally
gets up the nerve to go away, and heads to Hawaii to vacation his pain
away. Imagine his surprise when Sarah is there, and has her new
significant other in toe, a British rocker named Aldous Snow (a scene
stealer played by Russell Brand). Peter’s vacation will
definitely not be going how he expected it to go, but once he catches
the eye (and the pity) of most of the hotel’s staff, and mainly that of
Rachel (played by Mila Kunis, in a breakout role), things might
be finally changing for Peter.
The thing that makes this
film work so well is how it uses uncomfortable situations that are
instantly recognizable to anyone who’s ever been through what goes on in
the film and mixes it with hilariously absurd events to make an end
result that touches the heart and the funny bone. Nobody in this film is
a villain. They all have their flaws, but we see the good in them.
Aldous is undeniably cool, Peter may be a bit of a bum but he has a
heart of gold, and even Sarah Marshall comes off as somewhat likeable,
which makes the last third of the movie even more amazing than it
already is.
If anyone is going to
make a career out of this film, it’s going to be Mila Kunis.
Dropping the annoying nasal voice from That 70’s Show and to a
lesser extent the one she uses on Family Guy, she creates the
perfect rebound girl that might be something more. She’s smart, funny,
independent, and exactly what Peter needs. Just watch the scene where
she gets him to perform a song from the Dracula rock opera (with
puppets) that he’s been working on. Their facial expressions during
“Dracula’s Lament” are priceless.
By the end of the film,
we’re rooting for almost everyone involved to wind up with a happy
ending. The climax of the film may not be a total surprise to anyone
(unlike the multiple arrivals of Peter’s genitalia) but the strength of
the film makes it work. Segel has created something that fits
right in with something like Knocked Up. Apatow may not
have the ultimate golden touch (cough Drillbit Taylor cough) but
he sure knows a good script by a friend of his when he sees one, and
this certainly qualifies.
****/****
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