In all of Judd Apatow’s body of comedic work, there’s a really finely executed balance of hilarious and heartbreaking – not like tear-jerking heartbreaking, but like depressing-heartbreaking; it’s like that highly-sought after injection of pathos that an actor gives in a role, but with Apatow’s characters it’s more like pathetic-os. Following? Cool. Me neither, but I get that same feeling from the trailer for Apatow’s fourth directorial effort, the sort-of-sequel to ‘Knocked Up‘, ‘This is 40.’
The film picks up where we left off in the lives of the characters played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann in ‘Knocked Up‘ – remember the deeply unhappy but keeping-it-together sister of another one of Katherine Heigl’s perpetually unlikable characters? God, I hope she doesn’t make a cameo appearance – as they approach that big mid-life milestone and all the crises that come with it.
Returning also are Apatow and Mann’s own children, Iris and Maude Apatow, with the latter of the two, who at 14 has almost 50,000 followers on twitter (@maudeapatow), making for some very convincing teenage angst opposite her real life mother @LeslieJMann, who has some 70,000 followers. No wonder technology they want to limit the use of technology in film’s household. Supporting roles from Jason Segel, Melissa McCarthy, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Chris O’Dowd, and Apaptow’s current protégé, Lena Dunham (shall we talk about the lack of ethnic diversity in all of Apatow’s projects, hey Internet?), ensure that this is definitely going to be something worth watching, even through one eye behind fanned fingers.
‘This is 40‘ hits cinemas at Christmas time, just in time for your own annual bout neuroses about age, weight and appearance to kick in.
