Or so I thought, as we were settling in. But right off the bat, this turned out to be one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. We were both laughing so hard at some points, we were gasping for breath. Just incredibly funny.
(I should mention that if you haven't been in a long term-relationship for years and years, it might not seem as funny. Which is one of the things I appreciated about this movie: it's for grown-ups. And which is probably why I didn't hear much about it. All the marketing budgets are aimed at a demographic that doesn't include me.)
This is 40 has an intriguing structure. The first half hour is just a bunch of vignettes, short character-driven scenes that have no past and no future. I was thinking you could have taken this whole section of the movie and rearranged the scenes, and it wouldn't have mattered. But as I'm thinking that, I'm also thinking that it's probably going to be like one of my favorite books, The Rains Came. In that book, and in this movie, the whole first part is all character, and no plot. It goes on for so long, you start thinking it's just going to character all the way through. Which would be fine, since I loved the characters so much. But then, when the plot finally does hit, it's like an earthquake.
Speaking of characters: first, there's the married couple whose relationship is at the heart of the movie. Played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (the wife of director Judd Apatow), who are both perfect at capturing the crazy mood changes that make up every marriage. Well mine, anyway. You hate each other, then you love each other (often simultaneously). Rinse and repeat. Then the other characters are added in, one at a time, like new themes in a symphony. Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Megan Fox. All brilliant and hilarious. And two kids who are also wonderful (they're Mann's and Apatow's real life kids).
This is 40 is a sly movie, because first you get sucked in by the comedy and pathos, then everything you thought was about character turns out to drive the plot (it's what I like to call "good writing"). Finally, there's a big climactic party scene. In a lesser movie, this is where everything would have been wrapped up. But in this movie, it's just a feint, a deceptive cadence. It's as if there are two movies, and that's where the first one ends. Now the real deep shit begins, as characters begin to break down and go off the rails. Real life stuff. It's funny one minute and shitty and tragic the next. And of course everything resolves, a real cadence this time. And that's the end of the second movie.
Go, watch it.
