THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN

Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Universal Pictures
Grade: B+
Directed by: Judd Apatow
Written by: Judd Apatow, Steve Carell
Cast: Steve Carrell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Romany
Malco, Seth Rogen, Shelley Malil
Screened at: Loews Lincoln Square. NYC, 8/15/05

Some say it’s an urban legend, others insist it’s absolutely true. You know the two marmoreal lions that guard the big New York Public Library on 42nd St.? They say that the lions roar every time a virgin passes by. If they haven’t roared in some fifty years, that could be because Andy (Steve Carell) remained in California for most of his forty years. Yep. A male virgin at the age of forty. It can happen only in the movies.

“The 40 Year Old Virgin” is nicely tied together by director Judd Apatow, using a script he co-wrote with Steve Carell, a series of skits, some hilarious, others duds–in other words like an exceptional night of Saturday Night Live. As you might guess from the title, this is a one-joke affair, so to speak, about guys who are horny and take various actions to alleviate their condition. Think of “Wedding Crashers,” but instead of hustlers played by Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, the comedy depends mostly on one guy who is a victim rather than a man who pro-actively seeks out women. And oh, it’s raunchier, well suited for the 18-30 year old audience, yet enjoyable for fuddy-duddies as well.

Speaking of fuddy-duddies, producer/co-writer and principal actor Steve Carell, known to those in the audience who’ve seen him on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” and to movie audiences for “Anchorman and “Bruce Almighty,” is the titled character. We never know exactly why he’s a virgin, though the story implies that he’d dated, and since he did not come of age in the dreadful 1950s but in a more liberated, post-1968 time, somehow gave up trying. He’s not at all unhappy, though he’s stuck in a job in a Circuit-City type of place as a stockman, perhaps considered too meek to be on the selling floor. When his friendly co-workers discover that he’d never had sex (he describes a woman’s breast as feeling like “sand,” though we wonder why he couldn’t extrapolate the answer from his own chest), they’re determined to help. To David (Paul Rudd), Cal (Seth Rogen) and Jay (Romany Malco), Andy’s is a consummation devoutly to be wished (to quote Hamlet).

Andy gains access to a number of hot women, those episodes providing most of the laughs in this ribald comedy. At a speed-dating club wherein each man gets to converse with the women for five minutes each; in the bathtub of the sexaholic and most desirable book salesperson Beth (Elizabeth Banks); in a car driven by the thoroughly drunk Nicky (Leslie Mann); in a salon where Andy’s teddy-bear chest gets stripped by an Asian, who listens with amusement to the pained curses from her customer--there’s enough variety to prevent this one-joke comedy from becoming, well, a one-joke comedy. Ultimately the raunch serves the purpose of showing that most people around Andy, not the least being Andy himself, are sweet and grounded. We also find out that everyone concerned, not excluding the busy-body friends who are determined to get Andy’s cherry busted, is a decent person, and that love, not just sex, is what everyone really wants. The amazing Catherine Keener, best known for quirky indies like “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” “Being John Malkovich” and “Your Friends and Neighbors,” proves her mettle in this commercial fare as Trish, a woman with three children and a grandchild who sees Andy’s sweetness and actually digs the idea that she is to be his first conquest.

At almost two hours, though, the film could have been cut–particularly the inert chest-hair strip-mining scene that has Andy cursing the cosmetician with every nasty expression he knows. Nor does director Apatow excel in set creativity, relying on a handful of designs with broad lighting throughout. Steve Carell is easily able to carry the comedy throughout and is advantaged by having a support cast of insecure men who are really giving advice to themselves when they counsel Andy on how to deal with women.

Rated R. 115 minutes © 2005 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com