Here's Why "This Is 40" is More Relevant Than It's Plot Suggests

Left to right: Paul Rudd and Chris O'Dowd

During this past December, I got burned out on films exceeding the two hour run time. Don't believe me? Consider these titles: Zero Dark Thirty, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Les Miserables, and Django Unchained. All of these suffered from an excess that caused me to ignore them on initial release. However, it wasn't until this past week that I saw another victim of the very long run time. Director Judd Apatow's This Is 40 was every bit as long though nowhere near as compelling as the competition. Still, for a film that is meandering and terrible, there is something grotesquely transcendent about it. What Apatow has done is not make a good movie, but a time capsule of the modern era.

The origins of this film is just as mundane as the final product. In 2007, Apatow directed the successful Knocked Up in which a stoner learned about responsibility through a pregnancy. Since, he has been issued Entertainment Weekly's Smartest Man in Hollywood and produced everything in the new revolution of comedy, including somehow getting Melissa McCarthy an Oscar nomination for Bridesmaids and Lena Dunham severe status as a voice of a generation on the infinitely divided show Girls. The man is nothing short of a behemoth since Knocked Up came along.

Now imagine that he needs a new film project. What does he do? He goes back to the well of Knocked Up and makes what was referred to as a "sort of" sequel using the two characters whose plot in the original revolved around a fantasy baseball club. Not even kidding. They were dull characters in a film full of lively performances. They were in their own world and added very little to the story. In fact, all it really did was give Katherine Heigl some credibility when she bashed the movie for painting women as shrill. She would go on to prove just how dumb that sounded by making a career that continually increases that stereotype.

Still, there is no shame in making a sequel to Knocked Up, but not with the least interesting characters, who didn't even feel like characters to begin with. They felt like the extension family that was there to justify Heigl's home life. Of course, the real logic behind this is not that Apatow follows themes (The 40-Year-Old Virgin dealt about virginity, Knocked Up about pregnancy and responsibility, and Funny People about death and appreciating life), but that it was all about nepotism. Think about it this way: Leslie Mann is his wife. Maude and Iris Apatow are his children, who have snuck into most of his films somehow. All that was left was casting Paul Rudd, an actor that could pass as a cinematic version of him.

While Apatow's films worked because they were personal, this was bound to cause problems on the casting alone. Still, the biggest issue lies with the plot. This Is 40 is a film about turning 40 and realizing that the world around you is strange and ugly. Your kids are in their own worlds and the music you liked is not cool anymore. This is a genius concept, but remember, through the eyes of Knocked Up's worst characters, it is a real snooze fest. Paul Rudd is not nearly as vulgar as Seth Rogen nor is Mann the compelling actress to carry a vehicle of this nature.

Still, the way that this could all work was if they were unlikable. If they were painted as terrible people, maybe the concepts would bleed into the film more successfully. One of the subjects explored in this film include financial woes. Still, when all is said and done, that is where everything falls apart. In today's modern economy, it is hard to make a film about rich people complaining the entire time. This Is 40 is that problem, as we're supposed to sympathize with these people who can't afford things, but can manage to buy really expensive neon signs and go to luxury hotels for weekends. All of this is portrayed in a "we're having so much fun" manner that is supposed to be relate-able. I only wish that I could hang out in a luxury hotel.

It gets even more pointless from there. Where Apatow has usually been an expert in adding supporting characters, here they add pointless stories into the mix. This universe is full of people with problems, but not a lot of captivating solutions. Even with family brought into the mix, it just seems like a great mix of nepotism and celebrities being filmed begging for your money. Again, this would all be acceptable if these characters were supposed to be unlikable. 

This can easily be seen as Apatow's worst film that he's directed, and that is a fact. Where his other films managed to mix raunch with heart and present interesting stories, this is just rich people getting old and waiting to die. In a way, it is a thesis for why Apatow is the worst offender when it comes to nepotism in the modern comedy scene. All that can be really taken from this film is the director's belief that his family is so special that we'll care for them when they're suffering. Of course, that doesn't make for good story telling, and in fact the acting is at times distracting. Maude Apatow's primadonna routine is one of the worst child performances that I have seen in years. 

Left to right: John Lithgow and Albert Brooks

This is film is awful in every way. The comedy is weak and the pacing is terrible. There are too many characters that come off as significant, but never have any strong follow-through. Even the music selection seems to suggest that Apatow wants to tell you how to feel with blatant lyrics in indie rock songs that add nothing emotionally to the scene other than a singer singing words over people complaining.

So why is this film a time capsule of the modern era? What has been done with This Is 40 is beyond audacious to the degree that in 20 years, this film can be pulled from the archives and answer the question of what America was like in 2012. Few films like this have managed to explore so many themes so vaguely that it creates a portrait of the family life in all of its ugly forms. By choosing to portray the characters as likable, it already creates an unease that these people are way too self indulgent to care what the future thinks of them. There in lies the genius to this film's preservation.

Look at the economy. Look at this movie. Side by side, they make no sense. These people are rich while majority of people seeing this film are poor. Go deeper. By looking at what the film deals with, it manages to explore the pros and cons of our culture through two very uninteresting characters.

Leslie Mann

The first example is age. This Is 40's broadest portrait is of age. Leslie Mann is notorious throughout the film of trying to prove that she isn't an old woman by lying to her gynecologist and family. Even Paul Rudd has a whole routine where he has erection problems and a hemorrhoids. Comparative to Megan Fox's character, the analysis of age and beauty is a prominent theme that places focus on American ideals. That women are supposed to look great and attract men. Even the idea that this can be maintained through diet and exercise are examples of how society has grown health conscious and desires to be young forever. This is also greatly represented by Rudd's bicycling group and the somehow running gag that Rudd should not be eating sweets as often as he does and Mann shouldn't smoke at all.

This is later explored when she decides to go out to a night club and just dance it up with some hockey players with Megan Fox. In a sort of depressing way, it reflects how far some are willing to take the delusion just so that they can be accepted. It even gets into talk about sex and how attractive Mann is as a woman. It is also later revealed that Fox is an escort, and that forces her to use her looks in order to make extra cash as well as sleep with men. It makes Mann sort of envious though also relieved.

Billie Joe Armstrong

The music industry is also a subject done to death, if just because it is Rudd's job. He listens to terrible music like Alice in Chains and tries to keep his idols alive through his record label. Meanwhile, his family would rather dance to terrible music like Nicki Minaj and accept that not all music needs to have depth. The belief system alone is something that almost parallels modern radio's hollow output. Nobody wants to hear the great, well constructed song. They want to just sing inaccurate tunes about dungeon dragons.

Also, the music industry is almost dead. The RIAA is so desperate that they began infiltrating people's internet connections to avoid illegal downloading. Still, in a post-Napster world, the industry has suffered into trying to find ways to sell records. That is Rudd and his employee's motif through the whole picture. They need to sell records for Graham Parker and are failing miserably. His latest album sold half of his last one and everyone seems to care but the musician. In a way, this is reflective of how the corporation and musicians differ on how to profit off of music these days. Even the idea that Billie Joe Armstrong would be excited that Graham Parker got a song on Glee suggests how the times have changed.

Left to right: Charlyne Yi

The economic look is a running motif that can easily tie into the music industry one. At one point, Rudd and his employee Chris O'Dowd get into an argument over the significance of a record label that doesn't make any money. Rudd claims that he is doing it because he has a family and that everyone else is lazy. In a way, this reflects entitlement of the boss over his employees, whom he assumes stay up late and eat junk food. While they later go on to respect each other, the excess of pointless promotion and lazy work ethics are key to what drives the shift between the boss and the employee.

Also, Mann is the boss at a store and she believes that one of her employees is stealing from her. This is why Fox is a big role in this movie. It is mostly because she is attractive and possibly doesn't wear underwear in order to attract men. It is later discovered that the real culprit is Charlyne Yi, who is a stoner who took the money for her own benefit, not caring if the business went under. She is disaffected by it. This speaks to the job core as a whole, who probably don't care about their job and the consequences. It is what it is.

Maude Apatow

Then there is family. This is the one aspect of the entire movie that felt like it was even less interested in developing than the plot. At many points, Rudd and Mann want to have sex, but are interrupted by their kids. Maude, the older one, is upset that Iris is bugging her and that they can't get along. While this is common across all spectrum, the very idea that these two kids need to be attended to almost justifies the films asinine getaway scenes. The kids are annoying and barely manage to get along towards the end through illogical steps.

Then there's Rudd's father, who is even worse off than Rudd is to the point that Rudd gives him a John Lennon painting to sell for some extra cash. The very idea that because they are family, they can help each other out is a symbol of how the economy has forced some to be abusive of handouts. Meanwhile, Mann's father, who is more successful, gets yelled at for being that way, and it shows the mix of jealous and greed that goes into people during the time of a recession. Still, it doesn't explain why Rudd can't downsize his house.

Ryan Lee

The school world is also done to death in this film. At some point, Maude is upset that another student is making fun of her on Facebook. This leads to Rudd talking to the kid and cursing him out to his face. That is how annoying this kid is and how vapidly written Rudd is. This leads to a whole fiasco that results in the mother, Melissa McCarthy, being brought in to try and talk sense into Rudd, though all he cares about is how the kid did his daughter wrong. Still, McCarthy is too sensitive to care, and it results in talking to the principle. This reflects just how sensitive the school system is that they rely that heavily on parents to save the day and even then, they cannot convince them to do the right thing in the end. School children are terrible people, and this film shows how they infiltrate their private lives to just make them even more of a terrible person.

Megan Fox

Continuing on the path of technology making people terrible is the broad idea of technology in general. At first it is decreed by Mann and that she wants her daughters to give up computer privileges in order to have a better home life. They spend most of their time playing around with stupid games and talking to people on Facebook. There is even a sense of paranoia that they are looking up taboo, sexual subjects online (the scene from Knocked Up in which one Googled murder appears to have never happened based on this movie). Still, things come back around, and the parents are using it in their free time and suddenly the family dynamic is back to shambles. To make things worse, there is a grating plot that involves one of the daughters consistently watching and referencing Lost. It adds nothing to the movie besides to suggest just how isolated and co-dependent everyone is on consistently being paid attention to, no matter how boring they are.

There's even the very idea that technology creates a voyeuristic world. In one scene, Mann is shown watching Fox having sex in their workplace. While the initial idea is to be disgusted, it explores two themes: one is that the modern generation is very much comfortable having sex anywhere, and that people just love watching people have sex on their computer. This is notably shown when Mann congratulates Fox on having sex in the workplace in the video. Even the idea that Rudd decides to look up his own physical illnesses on Google suggests how reliant we are on technology that it is cutting off communication among everyone except the search engine.

Jason Segel

This all doesn't excuse how bad of a movie that This Is 40 actually is. However, it is a grotesquely fascinatingly bad movie. For all of the meandering, it almost feels like James L. Brooks at his worst tendencies making an essay about the 21st century and how the world has changed and the older generations are disconnected from the younger crowd. It may not say a lot about its characters, but through subjects that include technology, body image, music industry, and school life, this is the film that manages to hit all of the beats in a relevant way. It doesn't sugar coat it, but it does give them lousy protagonists to present it. The fact that they are likable only makes it harder to swallow and ponder what is so special about a pointless sequel of two useless characters feeling even more useless.

I doubt that when looking back at Apatow's oeuvre, we will consider This Is 40 to even be memorable. No joke lands as well as anything that he's done before and better. At very least, this is all wrapped in a bow that explains the downfall of nepotism. Where Francis Ford Coppola did it to a worse extent, he at least produced some talented kin that didn't seem to mooch off of him and bring his work down. This exploration of excess is what is wrong with both film making and today's society, and Apatow managed to cover it all gracefully. There is no film like This Is 40 in that regards, and that is probably why is will have a legacy and relevance, if you can force yourself to care enough.