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The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Directed by: Judd Apatow Starring: Steve Carell Genre: Comedy Run Time: 116 min. Release Date: August 2005 On The Web: Official Site Teaser: Movie Trailer Reviewed by Byron Merritt |
THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN is an adult comedy that
tries too hard to be funny by infusing vulgarity and crude
anti-social male behavior at nearly every turn (ala
THE ARISTOCRATS).
It doesn’t miss the mark completely, but the attempts at portraying a message of some significance get consistently marred by foul jokes that pull the viewer away from any true meaning. I realize this is a "comedy", but the message of what it’s truly like to be a 40-year-old virgin is never fully realized. All we know is that Andy (Steve Carell, LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE) is a pretty boring virginal guy who collects action figures, works at an electronics store, and has never had sex with a woman in all his 40 years. This seems like a pretty shallow character representation ...and it is. Where the comedy comes in is when Andy’s fellow male coworkers discover his lifelong secret. They try to help him out by giving advice, introducing him to loose women, and trying to change his body image (the chest waxing was painful to watch, funny, and gross). Andy finally meets Trish (Catherine Keener, CAPOTE) and falls head over heels in love. But his attempts to get close to her are stifled by his coworkers’ advice and his lack of understanding of sexual behavior. This is where the comedy really could’ve gotten a leg-up on other shallow comedies (ex. DATE MOVIE) but doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity. Instead we’re given continual bathroom humor obviously directed at the teen movie-going crowd. After finishing the film I had to ask myself if I really cared whether or not Andy got laid. And the answer was "no." I also felt that the ending of the film was very forced; a last ditch effort to make the 40 and over crowd somehow feel more connected to the character by putting in a musical number from the 1979 musical, HAIR.
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Image from The 40-Year-Old Virgin
DVD cost: $15.99 Purchase: BestPrices.com Film Review Stew Favorite? No. Stew Poo-Poo? No. Newsworthy: The "Beautiful Old Guatemalan Love Song" sung by Javier to Paula translates to: When you clean my room / I can't find anything / Where are you going in such a hurry? / To the football game. Movie Quote: "How could you go 40 years without having sex?"
Other Actors/Actresses from The 40-Year-Old Virgin
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Images from The 40-Year-Old Virgin
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