it's exciting because it marks the point where Rudd finally begins to
stake out his territory as a comedian and a leading man. As Peter
Klaven, the happy and level-headed real estate agent who discovers,
upon proposing to his girlfriend of eight months, that his total lack
of guy friends will result in an all-female wedding party if he doesn't
act fast, Rudd combines a nice-guy earnestness with a simmering nervous
energy – he's like a less sarcastic Albert Brooks or a more
self-conscious Steve Martin.
What surprised me, given that the
comedy of Rudd's career-defining roles to date has been either largely
physical (the beaten-down husband in Knocked Up, Rachel Weisz's nerdy-turned-studly "project" in The Shape of Things) or intellectual (his "smartest guy in the room" shtick in Role Models), is how verbal
his performance is here. The film's longest running gag is Peter's
aimless, embarrassed stammering, his attempts at breezy nonchalance
turning into awkward symphonies of nonsense syllables. Another –
probably the funniest – involves the revelation that Paul's various
impressions (another attempt at cool) all turn out Irish, which somehow
leads to Rudd doing a hilariously attenuated James Bond routine. It's a
showier comic performance than anything Rudd has done before, but he
seems comfortable and at ease -- even when Peter is anything but.
Rudd's foil in I Love You, Man
is Jason Segel, channeling Owen Wilson as Sydney, the laid-back,
cheerful slacker whom Peter targets as his new best friend. It's a
perfect complement to Rudd's constant, barely-contained panic; the film
sort of works as a subtler, less hokey version of the classic mismatch
buddy comedy. To his credit, Segel mostly just stays out of Rudd's way
in a role where the temptation to try to steal scenes must have been
difficult to resist.
The movie, written and directed by John Hamburg (Along Came Poly),
is uncommonly intelligent and finely tuned. It's occasionally raunchy,
but surprises us by veering in a serious direction: a running joke
about blow jobs turns into an almost credible discussion of Paul and
his fiancée's sex life. It has a way of setting up a joke and
blindsiding us with the punchline thirty minutes later. There's one
rewarding scene, involving a party toast, where the joke dawns on us
halfway through in a simultaneously hilarious and horrifying wave of
comprehension.
Hamburg has a sentimental streak, but it's
not always overt, and he knows how to be sweet rather than cloying. At
one point late in the film, I surprised myself by letting out an
involuntary "aaw." And though I Love You, Man is occasionally
a bit clunky – there's a big false crisis in the third act that lasts
about thirty seconds, and there's ultimately just a bit too much
pompous speechmaking for my tastes – it avoids most of the pitfalls I
expected to see. There are no contrived dramatic revelations –
something stupid like Segel's Sidney turning out to be desperately
friendless himself, for example – and no big scene where Sydney gets
angry at Peter for initiating a friendship under false pretenses. And
the film features a true rarity: a gay character (Andy Samberg, playing
Peter's brother) who is not a flaming, limp-wristed stereotype.
The film draws the obvious parallels between romantic love and deep
platonic friendship, trying to squeeze a lot of laughs from Peter's
nervous, deliberate "courtship" of Sydney. The joke withers and dies
after a while, but it's not often you see a movie that focuses on
friendship and leaves romance in the background. (Though Rashida Jones
gives a lovely little performance as Peter's fiancée, with Hamburg
shrewdly making her character kind and encouraging rather than a shrill
nag.) That it handles the subject intelligently, without turning sappy
and maudlin, is less common still.
But in the end, I think I Love You Man
will be remembered as the movie that turned Paul Rudd from a dependable
supporting player into a comic force to be reckoned with. He's a
genuine talent: a funny, smart, relatable comic with the acting chops
to back it up.