THE STORY: I Love You, Man is about a Los Angeles real estate agent Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) who just proposed to his long time girlfriend Zooey Rice (Rashida Jones). After she says, “Yes,” he’s left in a bit of a quandary. See, he’s got no guy friends. At all. And with no guy friends he’s got no Best Man, and with a short time to fix that, he sets about on a mission to make a new best pal. While a few attempts end badly, he soon stumbles upon laid back investor Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) and it’s not long before the two really seem to click. But is he Best Man material?
Director: John Hamburg
Writers: John Hamburg (screenplay), Larry Levin (screenplay)
Stars: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones
THE RUNDOWN: While most movie-goers now know Rudd as the Ant-Man, he’s had a long career in the movies and spent much of that time, perhaps ironically – considering he’s a big screen superhero now – as an awkward sort of goofball. He’s pure magic here, making Peter Klaven a lovable dork with a heart of gold who most of us very easily connect with. An often very funny movie, the chemistry between Rudd and Segel is spot on, and their bromance relationship on screen genuinely convincing. This is a really fun flick, with Rudd highly-praised for his performance, and rightly so, proving he was a huge star in the making.
Funny and even a little heartwarming, this all Paul Rudd, who keeps a great balance between lovably awkward and outright hilarious.
It’s much stronger in the first half than the second with a fairly predictable finale and obvious wrap up.
THAT MOMENT: Poor Peter is a loser with guys but a winner with women, making friends with just about any girl he meets, which makes him a star with Zooey’s pals but a sort of lonely one since he simple can’t seem to connect with anything traditionally masculine. He’s not good at sports, can’t play cards, sucks at drinking (think projectile vomiting), and has no verbal wordplay to make him sound even remotely ‘cool’ when chatting up the fellas. (A running gag in the movie is Peter trying to end conversations with catchy comebacks. He fails miserably and, well, it’s comedy gold).
Zooey and Peter’s gay brother Robbie (Andy Samberg) hook him up with some potential friends via ‘man dates,’ but wow, do they go off the rails, leaving Peter thinking he ought to just give it up. Then one day at an open house (for Lou Ferrigno of all people), he meets Sydney, who is just there for the panini sandwiches (that Peter made, of course), and things sort of click. He’s funny, open-minded, cool, a little out there, but very personable. Peter decides he should try to see if they could be friends. But first he has to call him. Turns out, that’s not so easy.
WHY IT MATTERS: Sitting at his desk at the large real estate agency, Peter tries to work up the courage to make the call, but it’s daunting. What’s he gonna say? Will the guy even remember him? Can he form a single rational sentence?
I love how this scene starts, with Peter staring at Sydney’s business card, thinking about what to do … or if he can even do it. He picks up the phone, nearly dials, then puts the receiver back, mumbling that he’s pathetic. He chews on his nails and rehearses a kind of mental script, trying to call again before giving up once more, stressing like it’s a dream girl he wants to call for a date.
He stands up and flips the card in his hand, staring at the phone, pondering, struggling, with every tick on the clock like a thousand years, and we wait with him patiently, wondering, hoping he’ll pull through.
Peter eventually collects himself and finally dials but gets Sydney’s answering machine, leaving Peter thunderstruck with anxiety, trying hopelessly to sound like he’s cool, but stumbling with nearly every word, calling himself Sydney and Sydney, Peter. It only gets worse from there.
What’s really great about this moment, aside from Rudd’s exceptional performance, is John Hamburg‘s direction where he builds up to this call from a distance and then slowly pulls in closer, somehow wonderfully capturing the trauma of what a call like this can feel like. It’s funny because it’s like that first-time call any of us make to that girl or boy we really like (though nowadays that stress is far less impactful with everyone texting), but it’s also very sentimental because Rudd so accurately embodies the pain of such a socially out of touch man needing to take the plunge.
Notice how it begins with Peter in the mid-ground with us a few cubicles away, the top of one even obstructing our view, the bottom of the frame blurred, giving the scene an affecting sense of instability, with Peter seemingly floating in the fuzziness of uncertainty. It’s a beautiful shot but also a sensational visual metaphor that sets the tone of the moment with surprising depth. This entire scene is a nothing like the rest of the film, crafted like a mix between something out of a Charlie Kaufman story cast with a classic Woody Allen character.
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Rudd walks a whisper thin line here, as most would have probably tipped this far too over into offbeat comedy, making it feel forced, but instead, he really clings to the humanity of what it feels like to be Peter, having us laughing but not because it’s comedy but because it’s so dang real. Achingly so. We know exactly what he’s going through. This is what real life is like, not what people do in movies.
Peter reminds me a lot of Andy (Steve Carell) in Judd Apatow‘s very funny The 40-Year-Old-Virgin, about a man who is well, a 40-year-old virgin trying to have sex for the first time. Andy is awkward and introverted and shy and unsure how to speak to people, and while Peter in I Love You, Man is at least getting regular sex from a beautiful woman, he’s painfully wrapped up in self-doubt. Both these men are great guys, but simply not made of the same stuff ‘regular’ guys are. And of course, what we the audience know is that, well, we’re more like them than the others. What the heck is normal anyway?
I Love You, Man is a smart, well-written little comedy that features one of the best performances yet by the always versatile Rudd, his effortlessly authentic turn as Peter Klaven the very reason the movie does what it does so well. Anyone who can make “Slappin da Bass!” sound funny over and over is well, someone special. There are a number of great bits where Rudd steers this true when it feels like it could run aground, though a first phone call to a new friend makes for the best in the show. It’s a great movie moment.