I Love You, Man. John Hamburg, 2009.
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Edition screened: Paramount DVD, released 2009. English language. Runtime approximately 105 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence toward animals.
I Love You, Man isn’t a one-note song, as it actually hammers away at two jokes. The structural joke – that Paul Rudd has no friends – passes the viewer’s time in a familiar tedious way. The laugh-bag joke, Rudd’s endless failure to improvise nicknames and catchphrases, is abysmally unfunny and just doesn’t stop. Each gag begins when, for example, Rudd calls a hamburger a burger-ino, realizes it isn’t funny, and allows the quip to fizzle out. The other characters keep stone faces and the silent humiliation is the punchline. I kept imaging that Ben Stiller’s delivery might offer just the right embarrassed stammer, but I doubt that anyone could make this bit funny a fourth time, not to mention every 30 seconds in a movie.
I offer this observation because a joke-to-joke assessment of the gag, its failure on both levels, and the associated sympathy I felt for the generally likable actors, formed a lifeline that got me through much, but not all, of the film. There is no salve palliating enough nor drink strong enough to mediate between suicidal thoughts and the Rush singalong in Jason Segel’s basement.