Judd Apatow Uses Comedy to Say the Scary Things Out Loud
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Natalie Pohorski
I grew up watching Academy Award winners and Disney movies, and not much in between. Comedies weren’t something I sought out and I had a straight-up aversion to romantic comedies. Those were hard passes for me. What can I say—I was a cynical kid.
But something changed when I was in college. Judd Apatow’s latest film, the 2007 Seth Rogen/Katherine Heigl comedy Knocked Up was coming out. I wasn’t planning on watching it, but my friends wanted to go so I tagged along. Little did I know it would be my first foray into the work of Judd Apatow, a comedic visionary I came to see as one of the most underrated, influential, Oscar-worthy filmmakers and auteurs of the 21st century.
His films are endlessly quotable, laugh-out-loud funny, and responsible for many successful careers. Just as important to me, however, is how their genuine and reflective approach to relationships helped me bridge the comedy genre gap.
A Web of Lies
It all started with Spider-Man 3.
There’s a scene between Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s characters that moved me to tears and opened my eyes to a new kind of storytelling. In the movie, husband Pete has been growing distant and wife Debbie begins to suspect he’s having an affair so she follows him, only to find out he’s sneaking off to play in a fantasy baseball league:
PETE: It’s a fantasy baseball draft, I’m not cheating or anything.
DEBBIE: No, this is worse.
PETE: How is this worse?
DEBBIE: This is you wanting to be with your friends more than your family.
PETE: Look, the reason why I make that up is because if I told you what I was really doing you would just get mad. So you think I’m seeing a band, I get to do my fantasy draft. Win win.
DEBBIE: Well, what’d you do last Wednesday night when you said you went to see a band?
PETE: I went to the movies.
DEBBIE: With who?
PETE: By myself.
DEBBIE: What’d you see?
PETE: Spider-Man 3.
DEBBIE: Why do you want to go by yourself? Why didn’t you ask me to go?
PETE: Because I needed to get away, you know. With work and you and the kids, sometimes I just need some time to myself.
DEBBIE: I need time for myself. I want time for myself, too. [holds back tears] You’re not the only one.
PETE: It’s not that big of a deal.
DEBBIE: I like Spider-Man.
PETE: Okay, so let’s see Spider-Man 3 next week.
DEBBIE: I don’t want to go see it now. I don’t want to have to ask you to ask me. I want you to just come up with it on your own.
PETE: What? I don’t even know what to say. Uh, what do you want me to do?
DEBBIE: You just think because you don’t yell that you’re not mean, but this is mean.
PETE: I’m not being mean. I’m being honest. You’re telling me I need to be honest.
DEBBIE: No, you’re not. You’re lying.
PETE: I’m doing it because I need to keep my sanity a little bit.
So what was the secret sauce? First of all, Leslie Mann delivers an award-worthy performance that is simply heart-breaking. It’s rare to see an actor so earnest and sincere with their sadness and confusion. Paul Rudd isn’t revelatory, but very believable. Between the two of them, conversation flows so naturally it feels like it's unfolding in real time. Given Apatow’s track record of improvisation it very well could have been.
Melissa McCarthy delivering her “I’m Life” speech to Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids.
But there’s something about Spider-Man 3—it’s a silly and simple detail that gets to the heart of the issue. This scene and the rest of Pete and Debbie’s storyline that moves into the sequel This is 40 demonstrate that a lot of the time it’s not the big and dramatic moments like a clandestine affair that make or break marriages. It can just be little resentments and white lies that are never addressed, like not inviting your wife to see Spider-Man 3.
Two Flawed and Hurting People
Forgetting Sarah Marshall was written by Apatow’s Freaks and Geeks alum Jason Segel and directed by first-timer Nicholas Stoller, but it wouldn’t be the movie it was without Judd Apatow at the helm.
Sarah breaks up with Peter to kick off the plot. Comedy ensues when he drops his towel and goes through the entire breakup fully nude, apparently from Segel’s personal experience. It sets Peter up as a loser that can’t get off the couch, and portrays Sarah to be cutesy, a bit snobbish, and having met someone else. Cut to what I’ll call the second breakup scene, after Peter finds out she was actually cheating on him for the last year of their relationship:
PETER: What made you cheat?
SARAH: Pete, it’s not anything you did. You didn’t do anything. I mean, you were great.
PETER: Will you please cut the bullshit and have a talk with me?
SARAH: Fine. Cutting the bullshit. It got really hard to keep taking care of you when you stopped taking care of yourself. I tried to get you out of the house. I tried to get you off of your little island you love so much—the couch. You didn’t want to see the light of day. God, there was one week where you wore sweatpants every day. (cut to sweatpants montage)
PETER: Oh, you know what, if they were Sean John sweatpants they would’ve been fine but because they were Costco brand it’s like the worst thing I could do.
SARAH: That has nothing to do with it, that’s what you don’t get.
PETER: I’m sorry that I didn’t end up being who we thought I was gonna be, you know. I tried really hard. I promise you that. I just didn’t have it in me. I think if you just maybe tried harder…
SARAH: Oh, I tried. You have no idea how hard I tried, Peter. I talked to my therapist. I talked to my mother. I read every book possible. I took love seminars. I took sex seminars. None of it worked. None of it made a difference to you, and I couldn’t drown with you anymore. Don’t you dare sit there and tell me that you didn’t try. I did. You were just too stupid to notice.
The film had pegged Sarah as the bad guy, but through this conversation we are able to understand that this relationship, as most are, was not about hero vs. antagonist. It’s two flawed people that are trying and end up hurting each other.
A Bite in the Ass
Apatow was also a producer on Bridesmaids, but again I’m going to credit him with another scene that brought me to tears (sorry Paul Feig, please don’t fact-check me on this). It’s when Megan (Melissa McCarthy) throws Annie (Kristen Wiig) a pity party and starts beating up on her:
“I’m life, Annie. Is life bothering you? I’m life and I’m gonna bite you in the ass.”
“I’m trying to get you to fight for your shitty life and you won’t do it. You just won’t do it.”
When Annie finally hits her back, Megan proceeds to tell the story of how she didn’t have friends in high school, but she overcame the bullying by moving on and becoming a successful (top security clearance) government agent. In between one-liners about nuke codes and eighteen wheelers, you begin to see Megan as much more than comedic relief. You hear about some of the pain that fueled her and see what a true friend she is in that moment:
“You lost Lillian. You got another best friend sitting right in front of you if you’d notice. You need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. I do not associate with people that blame the world for their problems, ‘cause you’re your problem Annie, and you’re also your solution.”
This is an area that distinguishes Apatow from the rest. Most generic rom-coms jump right to the last paragraph and for that reason feel contrived, less emotional. As someone who has struggled with depression and pity parties, I hate hearing platitudes and encouraging words when I’m in those dark times. What I desperately need is for someone to share their own experience with me to get me out of my head. Or maybe even a bite on the ass.
Forgive Us Our Trespasses
Trainwreck is perhaps his most approachable “romcom” starring Amy Schumer and Bill Hader (and LeBron James?) It’s not as weird or risky as the others, but it does tell great stories about fathers and daughters and sisters. Amy and her sister were seemingly raised by their alcoholic dad who taught them about his value of non-monogamy. Amy tries so hard to be like her dad, even alienating her sister, who chose a different (monogamous) life, in order to be closer to him. There are a few poignant moments in the romantic relationship area, but one that stands out is Amy’s eulogy for her father:
“Gordon David Townsend: not that great a guy.”
“He was kind of racist, and homophobic. He was a drunk. He once apologized to me for missing a volleyball game that he was at.”
She gives more examples of his many transgressions as a person and a father. Reading between the lines in Schumer’s fantastic performance, you can tell Amy sees herself in the same way, which adds another layer to her internalized sadness. She’s honest, factual, and understandably emotional, but resolved. And in the end says, “He was my favorite person.”
Funerals and eulogies are much more for the grieving than the deceased, and she honored both him and the people there by talking about him exactly how he was.
A Counterintuitive Connection
As I was writing this and revisiting the films, I realized my goal with this essay was along the lines of a woman declaring in anti-feminist fashion “I’m not like most women.” I wanted to prove Apatow’s worthiness of critical acclaim by distancing him from the comedy genre. By shouting “not all comedies!” to defend my own love of his movies while maintaining a personal brand as a movie snob.
But then came the epiphany: Boy, do I need to unpack this internalized genre-ism.
Comedy springs from saying the things we shouldn’t say out loud, from doing the counterintuitive. It shares the unmentionable things everyone can secretly identify with. This is also what makes comedy so important. It connects us to other people and tells us it’s OK to be weird, because we all are. It helps us face sensitive topics by subverting our expectations through non-sensitive material. And when you add in all the improvisation that features heavily in Apatow movies, not only is the comedy stronger because the performances are much more genuine, but the drama becomes that much stronger too.
Taken all together, I don’t think anyone has epitomized cinematic comedy better than Judd Apatow and his band of collaborators.
Natalie Pohorski is a content specialist at Cinema Sugar.