‘This Is 40’ Review

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This Is 40 is the self-proclaimed ‘sort-of sequel’ to Judd Apatow’s 2007 hit Knocked Up, following the lives of Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) some time after the events of Knocked Up. Apatow uses our familiarity with Pete and Debbie, as the married couple that almost everyone can relate to in one way or another, as a catalyst to explore the ideas of aging, marriage, parenting (or lack there of) and the general struggle people have balancing all of the various aspects of one’s life…just with a lot more dick and fart jokes, for levity of course.

The film starts off easily enough – Debbie is turning 40 and in a couple days so is Pete. Debbie hates the idea and decides to start lying about her age, saying she is 38, but eventually has trouble remembering the various ages, birth years and everything else to goes into trying to keep up the-fake-age facade. Pete, on the other hand, could not care less; turning 40 for him is much like turning 36, 28 or 34 – it is just another year in which nothing much changes and things continue the same as ever. While dropping off Charlotte (Iris Apatow), the youngest daughter, at school Debbie is warned ‘not to blink’ because next thing you know you’re 90; so Debbie decides it is time to change her life, as well as everyone else’s. Running down the list of purposed lifestyle changes with Pete, in which her suggestions out number his almost 20 to 1, it is once again made clear that Pete does not care about getting older, turning 40, eating healthier, exercising more, or changing anything in his life for that matter, although he is interested in the idea of Debbie making changes to her demeanor – like not holding grudges or working on her anger – all things to will make Pete’s life much easier.

Pete does have other things on his mind though, most notably, that his independent record company is going bankrupt, missing payments on his mortgage and rental spaces and, from the advice of his accountant, he should be looking to sell their house – all of these things Debbie has no idea about. These problems are ones that this married couple should be discussing and trying to work through, but instead they focus on the superficial problems in their lives. In Debbie’s defense she does not know about the financial turmoil they are in, but even when she does find out, they continue to hemorrhage money in some sort-of bizarre Brewster’s Millions set-up except Pete and Debbie do not inherit any fortune if they spend it all – they will just go bankrupt. This part of the film is easily the most infuriating. The viewer is supposed to feel compassion or sympathy for this couple when it is obvious that they are living well beyond their means. Hell, Pete and Debbie go on a romantic getaway complete with beachfront hotel room and ordering copious amounts of room service after ingesting numerous pot cookies – you know, what every responsible married couple does when faced with financial ruin.

There are plenty of aspects in This Is 40 that are not infuriating but actually quite funny and relate-able. Most of the humor, if not all, comes in the small exchanges and throwaway lines between the various characters. Jason Segal, Chris O’Dowd, Lena Dunham, John Lithgow and Melissa McCarthy all provide some laughs (even if for only a scene or two), while other scenes seemed superfluous and downright aggravating at times (including every scene with Charlyne Yi.) But, the funniest of the bunch has to be Pete’s father Larry, played brilliantly by the comedic genius that is Albert Brooks, who incessantly borrows money from his son to support his wife and their three identical sons – whom he cannot tell apart, even after giving them separate identifiable haircuts. Albert Brooks continuously brought the laughs and stole every scene he appeared in, which has me hoping for another sort-of sequel titled This Is 60 or This Is 70 focusing on Larry’s character.

This Is 40 is a comedy and in my opinion, the film’s only task to make the audience laugh, wherein I think Apatow succeeds. It is just that the film could have been a lot funnier if Apatow cut out a lot of the excessive scenes, of which there are a lot – cut out the entire ‘Who is stealing money from Debbie’s store’ plot-line with Desi (Megan Fox) and Jodi (Charlyne Yi) which seems unnecessary, couple that with the Graham Parker performances and you got yourself a good, relate-able comedy with a nice brisk pace; better yet, replace those scenes with more Albert Brooks and you got yourself a great comedy. To use a scene from the movie, This Is 40 could have been ‘Prince in the bedroom’ good, but ends up being a little bit better than ‘David Schwimmer in the bedroom’ good.