Judd Apatow’s highly anticipated film “Funny People,” which stars Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Eric Bana, Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman has recently screened to extremely positive feedback, enough so in fact that Jeffery Wells said it could be “award-level.”
Apatow has been making extremely creative and often-times beyond comedic films for years now, but so far he has been typed as a comedic filmmaker, not one to garner attention from the Academy Awards. With “Funny People,” it seems that many believe the comedian will begin to be taken seriously.
A director friend of Wells saw the film at a recent screening and loved it. “Really funny, a really sweet movie, a lot of veracity…really a brilliant film. Everybody’s game goes up a lot. It’s a James L. Brooks-level thing and a great role for Adam. It’s a perfect blend of everything Sandler has done in a serious vein. The film could be a bit of a marketing problem because it’s about show business but it’s so real.. It’s about a famous guy, a comedian, having to deal with the fact hat he has no life and nobody to turn to. But he gets better [through a relationship with a younger comic]…it’s basically a love letter to having a family.”
Wells’ source also commented that, “It’s more in the realm of Sandler for Best Actor and Apatow’s script for Best Original Screenplay than a Best Picture shot.”
We have to agree. We would frankly be shocked to see it even mentioned come Oscar season, and if so then only in the screenwriting category. Earlier in the year, we read the script and loved it, but since the marketing has begun it seems as though they may have rounded the sharp corners on the originally semi-serious project as not to alienate the die-hard comedy loving fan-base. We guess only time will tell if Apatow’s most mature work to date has what it takes to finally get him taken seriously as a writer and director for something outside of pure, pushing-the-envelope comedy. [Hollywood Elsewhere via Vulture]