Yes, I saw the damn thing.
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1758830/
All 3 hours of it. What can I say? It was freezing outside and I'll see pretty much anything in theatres.
Right off the bat it's obvious Judd Apatow has a serious cuckold fetish. His real world wife is the female lead, his children are the children. You immediately get the feeling he just wanted to make a film about his life and watch Paul Rudd bang his wife. It's an incredible exercise in hubris.
Obviously, this is meant to be a blue pill story of how, despite all the bullshit baggage marriage and kids comes with, it's totally worth it. Or worth it if you're in the 1-2% of top earners in the country. This movie could have just as easily been titled "First World Problems" and it would have been the exact same film. It's really laughable to watch these characters deal with the absolutely trivial, petty utterly minute problems that billions the world would give their right kidney to have. Apatow's hubris is truly legendary in this film.
But, towards the end of the second hour (good God it's long), I started to think maybe Apatow outdid himself. I mean, he made marriage look so patently awful for Paul Rudd's character you can't help but to wonder. Rudd gets bitched at by his annoying wife, his kids go without discipline and make his life hell, and he has to deal with a bunch of SWPL shit that makes him miserable. Sure, the ending is suitably Hollywood mushy and teaches the true value of marriage (heh), but I think Apatow shot himself in the foot with all the fighting and awful sex and fantasizing about younger, hotter women.
Hard to tell, but it looked like at least some of the male audience was in agreement. People (men predominately) were audibly groaning as this clunker dragged on and Rudd's character had to put up with more outright bullshit from his wife.
And there is so much hamsterism on the behalf of Leslie Mann it's almost at a parody level. A married woman going out with her 20 year old employee to get drunk and grind on strangers and have obvious mental masturbatory sessions with a bunch of hockey players she meets at the club? It might as well be a poster for the divorce culture of Western women.
Overall, this supposed introspection on marriage reinforced my notion the institution is completely dead in America. No amount of feel-good 11th hour emotional exploration can make up for the fact that Apatow showed marriage for what it is for most men - a horrible trap. And these people are rich, white, and privileged. Their kids go to private school, they drive new luxury German and Japanese cars, they have a mansion with hired help, they have all the iDevices you could ever want... and Paul Rudd spends the majority of the movie stressed out and tired of dealing with his wife's crap.
Two thumbs up for unintentionally exposing how miserable marriage is for everybody in this country, Mr. Apatow!
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1758830/
All 3 hours of it. What can I say? It was freezing outside and I'll see pretty much anything in theatres.
Right off the bat it's obvious Judd Apatow has a serious cuckold fetish. His real world wife is the female lead, his children are the children. You immediately get the feeling he just wanted to make a film about his life and watch Paul Rudd bang his wife. It's an incredible exercise in hubris.
Obviously, this is meant to be a blue pill story of how, despite all the bullshit baggage marriage and kids comes with, it's totally worth it. Or worth it if you're in the 1-2% of top earners in the country. This movie could have just as easily been titled "First World Problems" and it would have been the exact same film. It's really laughable to watch these characters deal with the absolutely trivial, petty utterly minute problems that billions the world would give their right kidney to have. Apatow's hubris is truly legendary in this film.
But, towards the end of the second hour (good God it's long), I started to think maybe Apatow outdid himself. I mean, he made marriage look so patently awful for Paul Rudd's character you can't help but to wonder. Rudd gets bitched at by his annoying wife, his kids go without discipline and make his life hell, and he has to deal with a bunch of SWPL shit that makes him miserable. Sure, the ending is suitably Hollywood mushy and teaches the true value of marriage (heh), but I think Apatow shot himself in the foot with all the fighting and awful sex and fantasizing about younger, hotter women.
Hard to tell, but it looked like at least some of the male audience was in agreement. People (men predominately) were audibly groaning as this clunker dragged on and Rudd's character had to put up with more outright bullshit from his wife.
And there is so much hamsterism on the behalf of Leslie Mann it's almost at a parody level. A married woman going out with her 20 year old employee to get drunk and grind on strangers and have obvious mental masturbatory sessions with a bunch of hockey players she meets at the club? It might as well be a poster for the divorce culture of Western women.
Overall, this supposed introspection on marriage reinforced my notion the institution is completely dead in America. No amount of feel-good 11th hour emotional exploration can make up for the fact that Apatow showed marriage for what it is for most men - a horrible trap. And these people are rich, white, and privileged. Their kids go to private school, they drive new luxury German and Japanese cars, they have a mansion with hired help, they have all the iDevices you could ever want... and Paul Rudd spends the majority of the movie stressed out and tired of dealing with his wife's crap.
Two thumbs up for unintentionally exposing how miserable marriage is for everybody in this country, Mr. Apatow!