Embracing the Bromance: “I Love You, Man”
After seeing Watchmen one weekend and The Reader the next, we were ready for some laughs. And we found them in I Love You, Man.
I’m ready and willing to jump on the major media love fest bandwagon for Paul Rudd. What’s not to like about this guy? He has co-starred (and almost stolen every scene) in a handful of cult and comedy classics through the years, including Clueless, Wet Hot American Summer, Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. Note: I have not seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall and did not enjoy Walk Hard.
What I enjoyed about I Love You, Man was that there were laugh-out-loud moments that resulted from awkward, realistic interactions between male friends and couples in various stages of their relationships.
While I don’t mind occasional potty humor, I haven’t found many of the recent bromance movies to be very entertaining. This film only has one relatively disgusting scene, but it’s actually…appropriate and tastefully done (if that’s possible) compared to most. The script and performances are just a step above in quality to most of Judd Apatow’s films, in my opinion. I was not surprised at all to learn that I Love You, Man director/screenwriter John Hamburg previously wrote both Meet the Parents movies and Zoolander.
In addition to the very affable Rudd, the dream cast of I Love You, Man is a huge plus: Jane Curtin (SNL), Jon Favreau (Iron Man), Rashida Jones (The Office), Thomas Lennon (Reno 911), Jaime Pressly (My Name is Earl), Andy Samberg (SNL), Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother) and JK Simmons (Juno).
It is nice to see an intelligent, relatable comedy succeed at the box office…even if it was inexplicably defeated by yet another Nic Cage movie. [No, I haven't seen Knowing; it looked like an intriguing conspiracy thriller and I had plans to - until the two scenes they unveiled recently at Wonder-Con featured incredibly horrific airplane and subway accidents that changed my mind].
Everyone could use a laugh these days, and I Love You, Man is worth the price of admission for almost two hours of entertaining escape. If you don’t get out to see it in the theater, it would make an excellent rental.