‘Flix Flick: “This Is 40”: A Funny Look at the Milestone… But Then It Turns

In this spin-off to 2007’s Knocked Up, supporting characters, Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) are now the main focus of Judd Apatow’s This Is 40. It’s a look at the married couple’s resistance to the realization that they’re turning 40.

The film’s first hour is light and certainly humorous, with several “rewind moments” thanks to Mann and Rudd’s believable chemistry and brilliantly goofy comedic timing. (Mann in particular shines, proving she’s one of the best comedic actresses working today.) A montage of Debbie and Pete getting their medical check-ups (Debbie in the dentist chair: “Turn it up! Turn it up!”) and their weekend getaway sans daughters (Debbie and Pete driving to their coastal hotel, gossiping about their kids; the couple having a morbidly droll conversation in their hotel bed) are definitely worth the rental.

Yet it’s in the second hour where the film starts to turn, becoming a darker story about secrecy in marriage, living beyond economic means (paycheck vs. passion), Debbie and Pete’s unresolved “Daddy issues,” and the destructive chaos all of that creates in one loud household, where “STOP IT!” and “SHUT UP!” are commonplace.

Debbie and Pete are basically fun, likable characters, yet they’re awful and flawed. They unfortunately slide into whiny territory, which explains the entitled behavior their teenage daughter, Sadie spews all over their house. And then there’s poor Charlotte, their youngest daughter, silenced amidst all the “f-bombs.” (Real-life married couple, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann have once again cast their daughters, Maude and Iris Apatow to play Debbie and Pete’s offspring.) Supporting actors, Megan Fox, Charlyne Yi, Lena Dunham and Jason Segel really don’t need to be in this film at all, and Albert Brooks, as Pete’s Dad, and John Lithgow, as Debbie’s Dad are great actors, but contribute to the film’s decline into the somber. There is one exception: Melissa McCarthy. She plays a brutally angry parent of a boy named Joseph who is harassing Sadie via her Facebook page. (The blooper reel during the end credits showing McCarthy improvising lines during the filming of the parent-principal conference is a scream. McCarthy can do no wrong and watching Mann and Rudd try to hold it together is a joy.)

I commend This Is 40 for showing how turning 40 can become a desperate catatonic-inducing realization; a period when the bucket list is longer than the grocery list; a time when eating a cupcake out back over a garbage can or secretly smoking a cigarette next to an open window induces calm, if only for a minute. This Is 40, however, goes on 40 minutes too long in its attempt to become a darker look at marriage. Leave that to War of the Roses. BSo