I Love You, Man
March 29, 2009
I wonder if Larry Levin, co-writer of this consistently funny comedy, ever dreamed that when he was writing “Seinfeld's” classic Keith Hernandez ep, “The Boyfriend”, 17 years later he'd be mining the same territory for the big screen, and of all things, it would be called a “Bro-mance”, and the film would be the apotheosis of such a concept. Indeed, if Jerry had a man crush on his new famous baseball player buddy out of shear awe, and maybe slight homo-erotic curiosity, the relationship between Paul Rudd and Jason Segel here, borne out of a mixture of need and likability, is a (almost) full on love affair. Rudd plays a guy so in need of male friendship that he has no one to ask to be his best man at his upcoming wedding; after a series of bad “man dates”, he meets Segel, a dude's dude, er, a slacker investor with a cool pad on Venice Beach and a unique personality, and they bond over fish tacos and Rush CD's. Not really understanding the male-male friendship dynamic, Rudd's behavior, sloppily handing out nick-names, failing badly at sex talk, is both painfully embarrassing and charmingly endearing, which is what makes the film so sweet when the two click, despite social differences, and begin to threaten the engagement with bizarre behavior alienating the fiancée (Rashida Jones). Co-writer and director John Hamburg's film isn't too original, the dialogue and pop references spring directly from any number of recent Judd Apatow films (Hamburg, a descendant of “Undeclared”, is well versed in the genre), as does the cast, but when the actors all click on such a high level, with material that comes out best improvised, than the formula is almost unnoticeable because the content is so distractingly funny. And even though he gives virtually the same performance every time you see him, Paul Rudd is turning into one reliably charming leading man, and this is his best work yet.
By Adam Suraf