‘Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie. Everything that goes into her mouth is a dick...’
The last time I watched this movie back in 2012 when it was initially released, I was a young man of 25 and found it to be enjoyable if a little forgettable. Well… let me tell you, folks, revisiting this movie in 2024 as a 37-year-old on the cusp of fatherhood is a whole different experience. I saw myself in this movie. I saw my wife in this movie. And this time, on this viewing, Judd Apatow’s film awakened many disparate feelings…
Picking up where Knocked Up left off with Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) still at each other’s throats, This is 40 explores what it means not just for a person to grow older but for a relationship to age. Elsewhere, the Apatow kids return as the children in this film (and to dispel any notions of nepotism I think both of them are great in this movie), as does Charlyne Yi as Jodi and Jason Segal as Pete. Joining the cast are Megan Fox as Debbie’s freewheelin’ employee Desi, John Lithgow and Albert Brooks as in-laws, and Melissa McCarthy as an overprotective mother.
What This is 40 does so well is to capture the ebbs and flows of bickering and resentment and lovestruck passion that make up any marriage. Rudd and Mann are so great together, particularly in the argument scenes, and Apatow scales down on the laughs here in an attempt to create something that feels a little more real than Knocked Up. Whether he succeeds or not is perhaps a matter of taste, some will call this film self-indulgent, but in its best moments, This is 40 represents some of Apatow’s finest writing.
I can see why this sort-of-sequel to Knocked Up didn’t do as well as the source material, but if you can buy into what Apatow is selling there is an excellent film here. Forget Marriage Story. This movie gets marriage in a way most other films in this area don’t. For anyone who is about my age who perhaps dismissed This is 40 as a younger person, I urge you to revisit it again now. It really is a much better film than I thought it was first time around.
