Reader's Review: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

By Kellvin Chavez on February 15, 2008

Just got another reader's review from 'Storm Shadow,' this time our reader got a chance to check out "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."  I personally don't know much about the film only that its from the  producers of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" and stars Jason Segel, Kristen Bell and Jonah Hill.

Here is Storm Shadow's thought on the film.

Hey LatinoReview guys.  I really enjoyed your coverage of the upcoming G.J. Joe movie because I’ve been a fan of that franchise since grade school.  I got a chance to see a comedy called “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” one fine afternoon in the city.  If you use this review call me Storm Shadow and I rate it a B-.

Well, after several comedies where either a 40-year-old virgin, a slacker father-to-be or goofball High School kids find true love, it looks like Judd Apatow is ready to tackle the subject of being dumped.  Apatow only produced “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” but he’s managed to fill the cast with the familiar faces from his past works.  The male lead this time is Jason Segel, star of “How I Met Your Mother” and the roommate who was always nude in “Knocked Up”.  Barely five minutes into this picture, a fresh out of the shower Segel is fully nude to the point where we see his whole package several times as his girlfriend Kristen Bell surprises him.  As soon as she says “We need to talk”, he knows she’s about to dump him and though she suggests he get dressed he knows “If I put any clothes on then it’s really over.”  Too late pal, because Ms. Sarah Marshall has found someone else and is ready to kick you to the curb.

As the title character Bell is the star of a cheesy “CSI” knock-off called “Crime Scene”.  Early in the film we’re treated to a behind the scenes promo with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush about Bell’s career and her five year relationship with Segel, who composes the moody music for the show.  Though it’s supposed to be crime/drama, the show is anything but, because her co-star Billy Baldwin delivers tasteless dialogue behind a pair of shades.  Rather than steal his brother Alec’s comedic style, Baldwin is pretty funny with his own deliveries, like in one scene where Bell discovers a victim’s penis was found behind an AC unit.  Baldwin: “Ouch, can you say dicksicle!”

Segel has been playing second fiddle to Bell for too long.  Always holding her handbag or being pushed to the background during red-carpet photo-shoots.  He never felt like he wasn’t a part of her life, but apparently, she wants him out of it.  He transforms into such an emotional wreck, that not even a montage of one night stands can ease the pain.  When his step-brother Bill Hader tells him he’s better off without Bell, because “she was a little bitch,”  Segel insults his wife.

Hader: “Do you really wanna go there? That’s the mother of my unborn child. We’re not even blood, you’re my stepbrother.   I WILL EQUALIZE YOU!”

To get away from the familiar, Hader suggests Segel take a trip to Hawaii and when he arrives at the hotel, he’s surprised to find Bell is there.  But she’s not alone.  In fact she has her new lover in tow, a British Rock musician named Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) who is the lead singer of a band called “Infant Sorrow”.  Bell has trouble believing the coincidence, and as fate would have it, the hotel is completely booked.  But the nice girl at the front desk decides to save him from embarrassment and accommodate Segel with a free room after she witnesses the awkward situation with Bell.  She is played by none other than Mila Kunis from “That 70’s Show” and man is she smoking hot.  I mean, just as I was telling a friend that Topher Grace was the only star to come out of that program, here she arrives with a tight little body and those hypnotic eyes.  Plus I was surprised to hear she doesn’t have that Brooklyn accent from the show, but a nice sultry voice.

The basic structure of the film is like most comedies where a guy gets dumped and has to see his ex with someone else.  There are the typical awkward situations for the lead and when he meets a nicer and more interesting girl, the ex gets jealous.  Along the way, Segel meets some interesting characters starting with Superbad’s Jonah Hill as an effeminate host who follows rocker Brand around everywhere, hoping to slip him his demo CD by kissing ass.  Then there’s this heavyset, but hilarious black bartender who says he’s happy he left south central because after living in Hawaii, he can name over 200 different types of fish.  Then there’s a friendly humongous Samoan guy who suggests Segel get his mind off Bell by helping him slaughter a boar with a pocket-knife for a luau.  And let’s not forget a regular in Apatow’s productions, Paul Rudd as a surfing instructor who has obviously been out in the sun too long, because he keeps losing his train of thought.  When Segel applies for a surfing lesson he thinks Rudd’s name is Chuck.
Rudd: “No, no those flyers are all wrong.  I’ve been meaning to have them changed. Chuck is my mainland name.  My Hawaiian name is Koo-noo.

Segel: “Oh really, what does that mean?  Rudd: It means Chuck.

The courtship between Segel and Kunis is rather cute and very real.  He notices she has a bit of a wild side after spotting her flashing her chest in a Polaroid that’s part of a collage in the men’s room of a local bar.  (Can’t tell if it’s really Mila or photo-shop guys.)  Apparently her ex-boyfriend who “was just a boy” tricked her into doing it.  Later when that ‘boy” shows up to make trouble, he’s one of those hulking fire-dancers you see at a luau and Kunis temporarily turns into Jackie from “That 70’s Show” by cursing him out. Kunis and Segel behave like real adults and I loved the fact that Bell could never understand the intentions behind Segel’s pet project for a Dracula rock-opera with puppets, but Kunis immediately gets it.  Brand the rocker seems to get it as well, calling it a “dark, gothic Neil Diamond” and shows that he’s actually a decent guy. It’s just that with his rock star mentality he feels he has the right to sleep with anyone as Bell herself soon finds out.

It was also nice that Bell turns out not to be the big bitch we think she is.  Throughout the picture both she and Segel separately recall good and bad moments together.  When Kunis gets enthusiastic for his rock-opera, he flashes back to when Bell first heard it and her sour reaction.  When Brand the rocker loathes a Hawaiian shirt Bell bought him, she recalls how Segel would proudly show off any clothing she ever bought him even if he looked geeky.

The film moves at a brisk pace with so many one-liners and rapid-fire dialogue that some of the humor may be drowned out by the laughter of the audience.  That’s good, because although I saw this film, I would pay to see it again.  It’s nice to see another sex comedy, with interesting characters that can be hilarious, with the occasional touch of humanity.  It’s also nice to see Bell in Kunis in kinky sexual positions or (simulating) oral sex as well.

Source:Storm Shadow

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