Funny People

There are two Adam Sandlers.  The first, the guy from BILLY MADISON, is vulgar and silly and childish.  The second, the guy from PUNCH DRUNK LOVE, is smart and thoughtful and sensitive.  I don’t think the BILLY MADISON guy could have existed if the PUNCH DRUNK LOVE guy hadn’t made him up.

In FUNNY PEOPLE, Sandler plays a smart and sensitive comedian who makes vulgar and childish movies.  Then he learns that he’s going to die.  Now what?  He has no friends, not really, and he’s pushed away everyone who’s ever loved him.  Maybe he can hire a guy.

Does this sound like comic material to you?  I suppose it could be, if played broadly.  But director Judd Apatow doesn’t play it broadly.  He plays it close to the bone, eliciting one of Sandler’s best performances and surprising us with the first real work of Seth Rogen, who shows us that he’s capable of handling more than straight comedy.  FUNNY PEOPLE is, indeed, a funny movie, but it’s more a human drama set in the world of professional comedy than a laugh fest.  It works.