FFVP Review - A Wedding & a 40 Year Old Virgin

A Wedding & a 40 Year Old Virgin

It seems a bit late to be talking about “Wedding Crashers.” It opened a month before “The 40 Year Old Virgin” but both movies deal with the vagaries of love and sex, albeit from a different perspective. The language of both films are representative of today’s sexual frankness, but both still stick to the tried and true formula that made the best sex comedies of the past work, like the Oscar winning “Pillow Talk” from 1959. “WC” and “40 YOV” may have no pretensions about Oscar glory, but like their successful predecessors the men and women do forge a connection between the physical and the emotional, except the term ‘lovemaking’ has been replaced by the more clinical ‘having sex.’

WEDDING CHASERS

Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play a couple of divorce lawyers who work the June wedding circuit like race car drivers. Each reception is a pit stop where they hope to score with the single women caught up in the heart racing emotion of their hosts’ wedded bliss. John (Wilson) and Jeremy (Vaughn) pose as relatives of the bridal parties so far removed no one questions their custom made lies. They have a story for every situation. They go for the gusto when they crash a society wedding for the daughter of U.S. Secretary of Treasury William Cleary (Christopher Walken). What they don’t count on is John being smitten by one bridesmaid - level headed Claire(a very engaging Rachel McAdams) , and the other - the sexually voracious and kinky Gloria (Isla Fisher) - sinking her fangs into Jeremy’s psyche with her own predatory skills. She matches Jeremy groan for grunt. Both are Cleary’s daughters. John finds it hard to turn down an invite to the family compound where the real fun begins.

John and Claire turn out to have more in common than she cares to admit, while Jeremy is ready and willing but not necessarily able to save his partner from a fate worse then death and leave. A brutal game of lawn tackle football and the attentions of Claire’s bother Todd (Keir O’Donnel) may not let him escape with his body and pride intact. John, however, wants to play out his games to the end for the ultimate prize - Claire’s heart.

On the downside, some gratuitous nudity works against the film and the presence of Will Ferrell as a legendary wedding crasher, who has found another venue to prey on a women’s weaknesses, is too far over the top, when compared to the naturalness of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

On the plus side - and it’s a big plus! - There are enough wildly inventive set pieces and one liners in “Wedding Crashers” to fill two movies. Vaughn’s and Wilson’s contrasting characters as a rapid fire monologist with a barbed quip for every situation and the easy going philanderer who knows how to roll with the punches are every bit as good the classic pairing of Wheeler and Woolsey from the thirties or Hope and Crosby in the forties.

THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN

When Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) tries to bluff his way through a bull session about sexual exploits at a testosterone driven card game his quivering lips, hesitant delivery and less than knowledgeable description of a female body part gives him away. Not only is he a super nerd but he’s - as the title says - “The Forty Year Old Virgin.” Andy’s once secretly scornful co-workers suddenly take pity on him and decide to initiate him into the world of male/female relationships - or - sex

Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Seth Rogan play the Three Musketeers who attempt to set the standards of sexual conquest with pornography, sex toys and a musical chair dating service. Each guy has his own slant on how to score with women that is perfectly suited to their personalities but not necessarily Andy’s. The results are mixed but he takes their advice to heart. When And flirts with a young woman by answering her questions with successively sillier questions, and she responds with laughter, Andy is ecstatic. Armed with a new found feeling of confidence he takes the plunge and calls Trish (Katharine Keener), the one woman he liked as soon as he met her over the sales counter at the electronics store where her works.

Carell’s Andy is not the kind of nerd found in those “Revenge of the Nerd” movies. They had a bond, were confident of their abilities, and aware of the forces that molded them. Andy is clueless. He has no social skills, collects toys instead of friends and lives a monk’s life, at least until he’s invited to the card game that changes his life. Carell makes Andy believable and likeable. The secret: playing him as a warm blooded human with an untapped reserve of love and compassion. In short - as a nice guy.

Katharine Keener’s Trish is disarming. She’s a lady who’s been burned before but is not burning her bridges. Trish is not looking for love but she knows honest affection when she sees it. Carell reveals a different facet of Andy’s personality every time he sheds a layer of repression. Trish is ready willing and able to bed Andy but he resists. She agrees to be celibate. The result is a misunderstanding of action and motive that threatens to break them apart. Soon much of the raunchy humor that launched “The 40 Year Old Virgin” is abandoned and the movie segues into a traditional romantic comedy with everyone rooting for Andy and Trish to patch things up and consummate their relationship.

In one of “The 40 Year Old Virgin”s highlights Andy visits a pregnancy clinic where he examines a biological representation of the female sex organ in his clueless way. He then reveals himself - again, but with a purpose - to be a virgin. What follows isn’t particularly funny but it reveals a side of Andy he has always kept hidden. It also points out, contrary to his friends beliefs, that careless sex without love is not a laughing matter. It has consequences. It’s a sobering moment that changes the tenor of film without sacrificing the comedy. It’s not an easy thing to do but Steve Carell and co-writer/director Judd Apatow pull it off.