Forgetting Sarah Marshall

600full-forgetting-sarah-marshall-screenshot

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Starring: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Jack McBrayer, Maria Thayer, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd

Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
Written by: Jason Segel

Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
Release Date: 2008

A guy gets dumped and runs off to Hawaii to get over feeling depressed, only to run into his ex-girlfriend and her new famous boyfriend.

Judd Apatow (40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) produced the movie, and has the usual cast of oddball actors in secondary roles, but it is written solely by Jason Segel. He bares his soul and a whole lot more in the movie. You get to see full frontal male naughty bits at the very beginning and end of the movie. In the beginning, it is played for laughs and to also to make the entire break up scene with his girlfriend as awkward as possible for her and the audience. There is a line in the trailer where Sarah asks Peter if he would like to put some clothes on and he asks her if she would like to pick out his break up outfit. That line is not in the movie though.

FSM1_L

What I found out while watching the movie was some of the funny scenes shown in the trailers were not in the movie. Some were, but not all of them. What was left in the movie worked, so I imagine what ended up in the trailers were be other improvised outtakes that will eventually be found on the DVD. I thought that was a good sign of a funny movie if the funny scenes in the trailer are not the funniest in the movie.

The movie has an overall sweetness to it, along all the goofy randomness of the side characters. Some of the side characters do cause the movie to stall at times, but I didn’t mind too much since I was usually laughing at whatever they were doing or saying. I was sad that Paul Rudd was not used more. He was around the least and didn’t really do much.

Kristen Bell’s character was a little more well rounded than I expected. I thought she would come across as the evil bitch ex-girlfriend, and she did at times, but other time she gave very good reasons why she broke up with Peter. She didn’t seem super mean and even was a little pathetic when she became jealous of Peter dating the front desk girl. I think that came from a good combo of the script and Kristen Bell. You want to hate her, but also can’t help but like her at times.

I also enjoyed the little in jokes with Sarah Marshall’s character that also poked fun at things that have happened to Kristen Bell. Sarah Marshall is on a hit crime scene show that gets canceled suddenly, just like Veronica Mars. Then there is a longer bit about her character in a dumb horror movie where people are killed by their cell phones, which sounds suspiciously like the movie Pulse that Kristen Bell starred in.

And I can’t forget to mention, the horribly goofy Dracula puppet musical is awesome, from the lyrics, to the puppets, and the watching of Blacula for inspiration.

Rating: B+

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.