Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

* * * 1/2

Peter Segal, Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Russell Brand, Paul Rudd. Written by Peter Segel. Directed by Nicholas Stoller. Rated R. 112 minutes. Universal Pictures.

When nice guy Peter (Jason Segel) gets dumped and humiliated by vapid TV star girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), the brokenhearted composer jets from LA to Hawaii to drown his sorrows. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is easier said that done when, adding insult to injury, his ex turns out to be vacationing—at the same resort—with her ridiculously sexy new boyfriend, preening, international rock god Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

Continually crossing paths with the new lovers while leaning on the frantic web cam advice of his best buddy (Bill Hader), Peter soaks up local color, including sexually dysfunctional newlyweds (Jack McBrayer, Maria Thayer), a straight-talking bartender (Dwayne McDonald) and a fake Hawaiian, perpetually stoned surf instructor (a hilariously witty Paul Rudd).
He’s surprised to find himself on the rebound and falling hard for warm yet fiery front desk clerk Rachel (the terrific Mila Kunis), while Superbad’s Jonah Hill tuns up as a hotel waiter and wannabe rock star love-struck by the shallow Snow. Hill is very funny here, getting one of the film’s biggest laughs “from six to midnight.”

You might think you see where Forgetting Sarah Marshall is headed, but the film wisely sidesteps what could have been a familiar revenge scenario. Instead, likable Peter slowly reconstructs his life with the help of a loving woman—an age-old concept cloaked in a modern break-up movie loaded with crudely funny jokes and a touch of tenderness. It doesn’t hurt that both Kunis and Hawaii are so magical, coalescing in a romantic ocean kiss following a funny, bungled cliff jump.

The film is stuffed with comic gems: Peter’s overexposed penis (the year’s most talked about nude scene) and blubbering emotional neuroses; riotous sexual encounters competing through paper-thin walls; an impromptu performance of a ballad from Peter’s unfinished, Dracula puppet musical; a four-way dinner conversation about a Sarah’s failed movie outing; a surfboard mounting lesson gone awry.

In comedy terms, Forgetting Sarah Marshall has many healthy laughs and a solid ensemble as the latest entry in the Judd Apatow-produced (The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad) cannon of geek makes good silliness currently revolutionizing the American movie comedy. A film like this exists light years above the average American romantic comedy in its male self-awareness and nice guys finish first formula elastic enough to both gross us out and make us tingly.

If it falls short of Knocked Up, a perfect movie directed by Apatow with much to say on men, women, aging, kids, marriage and responsibility, it’s because its focus is simply narrower and its ambitions are fewer.

Writer and actor Segel’s performance, completely self-effacing and lacking in vanity, is the best part about Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and that’s saying a lot. He is a world-class clown, a funny-sad, wise fool you can’t help but love.
One could quibble with spot-on Forgetting Sarah Marshall—the newlyweds aren’t half as funny as the film thinks they are, and a principal character has a sudden change of heart near the film’s conclusion—but why bother? Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one funny movie, and both Kunis and Segal shine. What’s not to like?
- Lee Shoquist