"Forgetting Sarah Marshall"
By: Neil Rosen, Entertainment Weekly
It's been a while since I've been able to recommend a good comedy – one that makes you laugh out loud and does it frequently. The new movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” does exactly that.
Meet Peter, whose girlfriend of five years, Sarah, is a big TV star. But she's about to break his heart. Peter is a complete wreck over his shattered relationship. And even though he tries to be with other women to ease his pain, he can't seem to get Sarah out of his mind. Wanting to get away from it all, he decides to take a vacation by himself. But when he arrives at the exclusive resort, Sarah is also staying there and she's brought along her new boyfriend, a pretentious British rock star.
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Peter stays at the hotel and naturally keeps running into Sarah and her new beau. Since it's a romantic resort, there's plenty of other happy couples and romance all around him, making him even more miserable. When Peter does find someone that he could be interested in, namely an employee at the hotel, played nicely by Mila Kunis, it often gets derailed because of Sarah and her beau's presence.
Jason Segal, who not only plays Peter, but also wrote the screenplay, is a revelation here and my guess is that this movie will do wonders for his career. He's quite funny and a lot of the humor comes from his willingness to be the opposite of macho on screen and be an emotional mess. First time director Nicholas Stoller does a good job and the film was produced by Judd Apatow, of 40-year-old Virgin fame, who he puts his inimitable stamp on the proceedings. A lot of Apatow regulars are also on hand, like Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill and they, along with the entire cast, are top notch and provide lots of laughs.
Even though the premise isn't groundbreaking, it doesn't really matter because the execution is well done. There are lots of clever bits of business and if you're looking for a smart, funny movie to bring a date too, this is it.