The shock of no longer being young and carefree – that’s the message in director Judd Apatow’s funny and poignant fourth feature, a ‘sort of’ sequel to Knocked Up. In the long tradition of Fellini and Woody Allen - where a lead actor is the director's alter ego - Judd Apatow's onscreen self is Paul Rudd. As Pete married to Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s real life wife), he plays a father and husband confronting the scariest mundane thing in life: the idea that he's no longer young. In fact, the couple experience a collective fear that they’re losing their grooviness - and so soon!?
The symptoms are a big house in the right part of LA and two precocious daughters (Sadie and Iris Apatow - real-life daughters) provide the start of their First World/middle-class problems. They're living beyond their means, hoping that a livelihood will come from their shaky creative businesses: he’s started a record label promoting Graham Parker and she’s got a boutique that sells a lot simply because it is also the place where clerk Megan Fox (pictured below) stands on a ladder quite a bit.
Meanwhile Pete's father (Albert Brooks) lives under a flightpath with his new wife, triplets and no visible income. Debbie's father is distant dad John Lithgow, also with a second family. Pete lends money to his father and lies to Debbie about it because that’s what families do. In a sudden frenzy of improvement, Debbie limits wi-fi access to her older daughter and goes on a health kick, worrying that marriage was a big mistake. Pete hides in the bathroom with his iPad.You get the drift.
As Apatow’s most personal film, it is embarrassing, uncomfortable, funny and dazzling. We mustn’t forget that it is not a documentary. (It is not fact. Even documentaries aren’t.) What Apatow is daring to show us is the glamour and despair of what seems like a charmed life. It’s hard to dislike any of the characters, even with their shallow bitching, impossibly terrific bodies and swanky lifestyle, because we get to know them so well. We understand their problems and that's love, baby.
Laughs and grimaces aside, by the end of This Is 40, you’ll feel you’ve been put on Apatow’s party invitation list, along with cameo appearances by Melissa McCarthy, Jason Segel, Chris O’Dowd and Lena Dunham. You may despise the frippery, but you'll see reflections of yourself all the same.
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