I Love You, Man
Review by Jason Gaston
It has been a long time since Hollywood was secure enough in its own manhood to make a movie about man love. Not gay man love, but rather the kind of love that guys just have for each other as friends. According to most accounts, all men want to do when they get together is drink beer, ogle boobs, read dirty magazines, and just be generally unpleasant to one another. That's why movies like I Love You, Man are so refreshing - it's an honest take on the way male friendship actually works.
Much in
the same vein as Superbad, another comedy that had the audacity
to recognize male bonding as something that can transform into love
for one another, I Love You, Man finds Paul Rudd, a soon to be
married man who can't find a best man because he has no guy friends
so, Rudd sets out on a series of man-dates to find the best friend
he's been missing all his life. Enter the very entertaining
Jason Siegel as a potential candidate for bro-mance, and you have the
makings of a very funny movie.
Much like Superbad, I Love You, Man's recognition of the actual fondness that guy friends show to one another and the ballsy honesty about the hidden world of casual man affection is the thing that elevates this movie from an average comedy to something more. Despite the fact that characters and situations are exaggerated as comedies tend to do, there is a very nice air of genuineness to the movie that gives it more of a sense of reality, moreso than the typical buddy movie.
These two guys like each other, nay, they love each other and it's that affection that just makes me want to go drop the wife off at the mall and go hang out with them for a day.
Unfortunately, there's nothing extremely special or amazing about the script that does veer into the realm of predictability more often than I like, but the attitude of the movie and its ideals are refreshing and honest. The problem is the script that moves from point A to point B to point C and so on like clockwork and it hollows out the heart of this movie. If there's anything a comedy should not be, it's predictable and this misstep is the sort of thing that will not bring this movie up in twenty years when we're all talking about how great Superbad and its cousins were.
Still, I Love You, Man is a perfectly serviceable R-Rated comedy with a nice cast and insightful commentary on the feminization of the American man. While not overly original, I was taken in by the frank honesty of this movie and that alone is enough to recommend it.
Take your best friend.