The TV Addict 

FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is the funniest film I’ve seen all year, and yet while I was watching the film my laughter felt strangely hollow. Throughout all the great lines, and performances, and comedic set pieces, it was always there. As I was leaving the theatre I found myself trying to figure out what was missing, why I felt somehow disappointed, even though I had laughed my butt off and enjoyed myself.

The basic story was fine, if comfortably familiar. Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is a composer for a hilarious CSI-knock off show (while working on an awesome puppet based Dracula rock-opera on the side), and is dating the show’s star, Sara Marshall (Kristen Bell) until she dumps him. After a series of drunken one-night stands, Peter escapes to Hawaii to get over Sarah only to (of course) bump into her and her new lothario rock star, Aldous Snow (the scene-stealing Russell Brand) at the resort. Things get worse for a while until (of course) he begins a flirtation with Rachel (Mila Kunis, who has gotten gorgeous since “That 70’s Show”), the concierge at the hotel. You can probably figure out where things go from there.

Sure it’s a pretty fluffy story, but it gives Segel plenty of room to allow for the laugh-out-loud moments that can be derived from Peter’s situation. However hilarious FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is, Segel also doesn’t forget the serious moments. Even if Peter’s post-break up depression is largely played for laughs, underneath is a heartfelt reminder of how tough getting dumped can really be, or how nice it is when you finally learn to move on and heal, as occurs when Peter’s romance with Rachel blooms (a courting that steered away from one of my pet peeves). And like any Apatow touched film, characters learn some tough lessons along the way, allowing them to overcome their immaturity, obliviousness, etc., to become better people.

After some thought about my disappointment, I think the problem I began to notice in hindsight is that despite all the above, the narrative is not very focused and sometimes over-indulgent. There’s a lot of fat on FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Some of it is meandering or repetitive plot elements, some of it is strangely placed scenes (like one with a violent outburst from Kunis), but the majority of it are the largely unnecessary supporting characters and their sub-plots. Sure, I understand that just watching Peter be on vacation alone is boring, and that’s probably why Segel felt a slew of humorous characters were needed to pad the film, but that’s the problem: they’re padding. In a film like, KNOCKED UP or 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, the auxiliary characters all play vital parts in the main characters narrative and never feel excessively extraneous. In FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL they do.

As much as I adore Paul Rudd, his brain dead-surfer was completely unnecessary and (sadly) rarely funny. Jonah Hill seems to be in the film just because he’s Jonah Hill and his shtick gets old after a while. Jack McBrayer and Bill Hader are both hilarious in the film, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a reason for their presence as well. Even Kristen Bell’s Sarah feels underutilized. These characters feel especially redundant in the face of outstanding characters Peter and Aldous. Sure, I understand that these characters are meant to be a wacky kaleidoscope of locals and vacationers, there to show that Peter is reaching out, connecting with others again, and trying to heal his wounds, but it doesn’t change the fact that they amount to – for lack of a better expression – tangential comedy.

That’s probably the best way to express my issue with FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. In the end it’s maybe not that there was anything missing, but that what was there was too tangential, too meandering, and too unfocused. I never got the sense of having had a complete, fulfilling experience. It’s undoubtedly a witty, clever script, just maybe not an accomplished one. Sometimes a comedy being funny is more than enough. Sometimes you need a little more than that.

Overall rating: B