Review of “I Love You Man”
John Hamburg made a career of writing and directing truly mediocre comedies (Along came Polly, Meet the Parents) but he successfully punches above his weight with the classy, heart-warming I love you man. Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is a real estate agent with aspirations to move into property development though perhaps lacking in the self-esteem to bring his dreams to fruition. When he proposes to Zooey (Rashida Jones), she calls her closest hundred or so friends to share the happy news, and Peter realises that having put effort into his work or his girlfriends over the years, he let his male friendships fall by the wayside, and he doesn’t have even one close male friend he might want to tell, much less to ask to be his best man. Paul stumbles into the middle of a girl’s night out with Zooey’s friends, and accidentally overhears them wonder whether his lack of friends to distract him will make him an impossibly clingy husband, and calls in help from parents (Jane Curtin and J.K. Simmons) and brother (Andy Samberg). They set him up on an unsuccessful series of ‘man-dates,’ until he meets a kindred spirit in Sidney (Jason Segel) who crashes an open house Peter is running to mooch free food.
Bromance is the term given to the supposedly modern phenomena that men actually enjoy each others company. Not in an Auckland motel kind of way, nor in the Brokeback Mountain kind of way, but Peter and Sidney’s story is a love story, of the friendship kind of love, and it is as sweet a romantic comedy as I have ever seen. Paul Rudd and Jason Segel have acted around each other in a half-dozen of these boy-who-never-grew-up comedies now (40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and both are outstanding.
What is impressive about Hamburg’s screenplay (co-written with John Levin) is the way it explores the complexities of modern, grown-up friendships, and especially the awkwardness of making new friends in middle age, while still retaining a bracing sense of adolescent humour. It also deserves much credit for flirting with the idea of a male friendship without gay-bashing, and for real-life female characters. Too often in these blokey comedies the girls are little more than ornaments or plot obstacles. The gorgeous and talented Rashida Jones’ Zooey is a supportive figure for Peter as he tries to develop a new side to himself, and ought to add to the fan following she has built on The Office.
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