The Bizarre and Interesting Structure of Judd Apatow's 'Funny People'

Funny People is a Judd Aptow movie about two comedian 'friends' at opposite sides of the career ladder: one just starting out, and one who's peaked and has had as much success as one could have. I don't want to spoil the movie, so I'll try not to, but I will talk about how the movie bookends. If you think that'll spoil, don't continue.

Here's what interesting about this movie: It has a really weird structure, I'm not even sure if it works, but either way, I appreciate it trying something new.

But before getting into that, it's worth noting that this film really plays with some of your expectations. You might go in thinking it was a story about the underdog (the non-famous comedian) and his journey, and how this antagonistic mentor helps him while also creating hilarious situations. But the movie is actually darker than this. It's about comedy and it uses the language of comedy, but it isn't particularly a comedy itself. It's also not a sweet 'buddy movie'. Nor is it even a coming of age story about the young comedian. It's a dark story about the older comedian (played awesomely by Adam Sandler), and his dismal life and his inability to escape that dismal life because of how much he hates himself and acts like a jerk.

You might then have your expectations played with further as you're set up to think that X will be the challenge he rises to, which gets him out of his rut. "OK, no it's not," you then realise. "Y will be the challenge that he rises to that gets him out of his rut, then!" Again it isn't. It's seemingly a movie about a jerk, who you sense is underneath it all a really nice guy, but won't stop f**king himself over by being a jerk, who never gets past it....

...BUT for two tiny scenes at the beginning and the end of the movie, which bookend the film and reveal (as endings and beginnings so often do) what the film is really about. In the first he's a young comedian having what appears to be an incredibly fun time prank calling with his friends. At the end, he approaches the younger comedian with some jokes he's written for him.

Everything in between those two minutes, separated by nearly two hours, has nothing to do with his  dissatisfaction with comedy, or how he's let his love for the craft go, or how he wants to help the kid. It's about completely different problems in his life. But it happens that at the end of the movie, when you see him helping the young comedian, you realise what he needed all along was not any of the things he's spent the movie thinking he needs, he just needs to get back to where he was at the start of the movie when he himself was still young and loved making jokes with people.

It's very rare for a movie that would be about comedy and star Adam Sandler to be thematically so subtle, and play the theme so close to its chest with regards to the structure. I think ultimately all this contributes to why it doesn't work and people largely don't like the movie. But still, that's a very interesting, ballsy way for Aptow to go about getting the movie's closure.

I'm going to give it a break and say 7 out if 10 stars for trying something and being pretty enjoyable to watch.