Forgetting Sarah Marshall (***)

I like that they humanized the singer. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the latest product of the Apatow Empire, is about a Hollywood composer named Peter (Jason Segel) who does the music for a hit CSI knock-off TV show, and who is dating one of the stars of that show, the eponymous Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). She dumps him, and we learn with Peter that there's another guy in the picture, an insufferably vain pop singer named Aldous Snow (Russel Brand), whose look seems modeled after the late Michael Hutchens of INXS and whose attitude is at once effete and predatory; he's the kind of human being you instinctively dislike, because he reminds you of that gym instructor who only dates married women. In a lesser movie, he would be a twat, and that would be that. In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, there is an astounding scene where he and Peter have a heart-to-heart. Aldous confronts his flaws - he's vain, shallow, hopelessly addicted to women wanting him, and thus terribly unfaithful. And yet, it's funny, because the two guys get each other. Peter was with Sarah for five years. "You deserve a medal" the singer says, "or a holiday, or at least a cuddle from somebody." Peter nods.

What can you say about this movie, really? It's funny. At times very funny, like when a morose Jason Segel, who escapes to Hawaii post-breakup only to find that his ex and the singer are at the same hotel, has a videophone conversation with his brother-in-law (Bill Hader), involving his sister butting herself in and an inquiry as to the source of a pearl necklace. What can I say. I'm twelve. I laughed.

But mostly, I liked that they humanized the singer. It seems symbolic. I think most people get Apatow movies a little wrong. People are quick to come up with trite summaries of what they contain - "a lot of laughs, and a genuine heart; really about male bonding, male friendships". Blah, blah, blah. To me his movies have always been about accepting life as it comes, and finding the humor. The 40-year-old Virgin had it, and Knocked Up for sure, and Superbad perhaps most of all. Here we have Peter, played by Jason Segel, who also wrote the movie, with an honesty that would win him awards if anyone took the movie seriously. You might remember him as the friend of Seth Rogen's in Knocked Up who would hit on anything with a pulse. Here he's a very different character, a morose, overweight loser who clung to his relationship with Sarah for years beyond its natural breaking point, who hates the thought of being alone, and who when he meets Rachel (Mila Kunis, from That 70's Show), likes her so much that he doesn't want to consign her to Rebound Girl status.

Not much happens in the movie, truth be told. I'm finding it hard to keep a coherent review going. I have to admit I wasn't terribly concerned with whether Peter and Rachel got together, though it was obvious that they would from the second we got to the hotel and I said, "Hey, it's that girl from That 70's Show!" And yet that's perfectly okay; it's about the old relationship and not the new, the pain of the breakup even when you realize with every rational part of your brain that you're better off apart. Each of the characters are fully realized, flawed but human. Peter's a bit of a loser, but not completely sedentary. Sarah's a bit of a bitch, but not completely heartless. The singer is insufferable, but perspicacious enough to know how he comes across. Rachel is free-spirited, but gets into a shouting match with an ex boyfriend that leaves us wondering if she might be a little deranged.

That all sounds a little tedious to describe, but seeing characters like this reminds me of how rare they are; it's a trait of Apatow movies, and good comedies in general, that even the most ridiculous of characters seem like people you've met. Nobody in the movie exists for the purpose of the plot. Maybe that's because there's not much of a plot to begin with, but maybe it's also because the movie is built as a ground-up exercise in witnessing how humans interact. We fight, we fume, we sulk, we empathize, and ultimately, if we go about our business the right way, we emerge older and wiser for our troubles. There's a surf instructor character in the movie, played by Paul Rudd, who's probably smoked a joint or twenty too many in his life. "If you get bitten by a shark, you're not just gonna give up surfing, are you?" he asks.

"Yeah, probably", Peter replies. But it's okay. We get what he means.

Rating: 3 out of 4.

Next up: Mulholland Drive