The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Disclaimer:
This review contains adult content.
In case you didn’t figure that out given the title of the movie.
This was certainly an interesting film choice to review here given the subject matter and the fact that I’m an asexual person and actually couldn’t care less if I have sex or not, but don’t blame me, blame my ridiculously skewed randomizer app which picked this movie for me. Darn technology.
Given that intro you may think that I didn’t enjoy this film, but honestly I thought it worked reasonably well for what it was trying to accomplish. A simple, lighthearted comedy based on the simple premise of getting your middle-aged coworker a friend with benefits. Despite what it’s trying to be as well, I think it also manages to be more clever than some people may notice upon first viewing (myself included). It has a very casual slice-of-life feel which makes the moments in it feel more real and believable and elevates the comedy to a higher level as well. Would I go so far as to say this is a comedic classic, no, but what works in this movie does really work and keeps your interest. I never had a moment while watching this where I felt bored, and much like how I mentioned two reviews ago when I looked at Everything’s Gonna Be Okay, the realism is definitely the best part of the whole thing for me. There’s a lot of movie to get through, so let’s just jump right in.
Grab your big box of pornography and your two bags of sand (Why two? You know why), and let’s take a look at The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Naturally we spend most of the movie focused on a group of coworkers working in an electronics store called Smart Tech where we meet our cast of characters. Our protagonist and 40-Year-Old Virgin is Andy (played by Steve Carrell), and he works alongside Jay (played by Romany Malco), Cal (played by Seth Rogen), David (played by Paul Rudd), Paula (played by Jane Lynch), Mooj (played by Gerry Bednob), and Haziz (played by Shelley Malil). I firmly believe that most of what makes the relationships between these people seem genuine is that each of the actors were allowed to improvise a large portion of their lines and this is also where much of the comedy comes from. Oddly enough, I think when it comes to the actual scripted jokes in the movie, they’re the ones that aren’t quite as good as the off-the-cuff jokes from the actors. Not to say that they’re bad, but that they just don’t seem to fit well with the other jokes in the movie given the genre and tone. In the end they come across as just the slightest bit off.
After it’s discovered by his coworkers that Andy is a virgin, David tells him that he shouldn’t be worried about sex, and also shouldn’t think about it. What follows after is a sequence of Andy walking along a street where there are several attractive women he can’t help but stare at, a magazine stand with covers all featuring attractive and some even topless women, only to then be followed by a bus very explicitly advertising an aphrodisiac on the side of it which keeps pace with Andy for about a block, until finally he runs across two dogs in a park ‘playing’ with each other. To me, yes it is kinda funny, but it is unfortunately a reminder that this whole thing is a movie. I was much more comfortable imagining this whole scenario taking place in a real person’s life and them facing both the tough and funny implications of it, and this scene feels less like that and more like a ‘movie’ moment only because it is very clearly scripted.
I’d also just like to get this off my chest real quick, while I’m not usually one to discuss movie theories, this is spooky:
You see, it makes sense because they both love toys! He grew up, went to college, became live-action, and never had sex. Any other movies from your childhood you’d like for me to ruin, let me know in the comments.
Aside from that, the story plays out very organically like how each of Andy’s coworkers in turn try to help him in his pursuit of the elusive ‘pussy’ which is the majority of what our time is spent on in the first third of the film. Jay gives Andy the most dude-bro tips you can imagine by showing him around the bar scene explaining how to use his ‘instincts’ to land drunk bitches (his words, not mine), Cal has more smooth moves by explaining to Andy that women only want to talk about themselves so all he should do is ask them questions and they’ll be interested in him, and David, after noticing Andy is still in a rut, gifts him his gigantic box of porn on the off-chance he would still like to experience climaxing even if he doesn’t have a partner.
One thing you may notice about all of these people is that I probably wouldn’t be friends with any of them in real life. The point behind these characters though isn’t to make them PC and likable, it’s to make them believable and humorous. While I wouldn’t be friends with any of these people in real life, they are funny to watch which should be what the focus is in a comedy. The ‘You Know How I Know You’re Gay?’ bit, while not a conversation I’d enjoy having with any of my friends, is still very funny to watch. I don’t know why, I can’t help but laugh every time I see it just because Seth Rogen’s and Paul Rudd’s improv is so believable. Although some of the jokes in this movie really haven’t aged well, such as the one about the trans prostitute. Really uncomfortable. Yeah Seth, it sounds like you’ll need to play in Big Mouth to make up for this.
Beyond that though, I also like how from a story standpoint it’s nonverbally expressed that what’s going on is Andy wants something different than his coworkers. Jay, Cal, and David are all ultimately wanting Andy to have sex of course, but the thing is that Andy really wants somebody to love like Freddie Mercury. Also, as an asexual person, I can guarantee you that sex and love are not the same thing. What works pretty well about the pacing of this movie as well is that at around the time you might be noticing this disconnect is when a new character enters the picture in the form of Trish (played by Catherine Keener). She just so happens to be a character that finds herself attracted to Andy and both Steve Carrell and Catherine Keener play so well off of each other that I truly believe they’re made for each other. In every scene they’re together you can just feel how similar their personalities are, what Trish likes about Andy, what Andy likes about Trish, and what makes them want to make this relationship work. Part of this may be due to the fact that Catherine Keener hadn’t acted in many comedies at the time and in fact was only just coming off of two very dramatic roles in The Ballad of Jack and Rose and The Interpreter, so you feel her dedication to the craft every time she’s on screen. Also, she is pretty funny. The argument she has with her daughter Marla (played by Kat Dennings) later in the movie always makes me laugh.
What really gives Andy and Trish more time to be cute in the movie is when their first date goes horribly wrong once it gets to them having sex at Trish’s house and her kids walk in on them. After this bit of embarrassment, both Andy and Trish agree that they don’t need to have sex in order to be happy together prompting Andy to propose that they won’t even think about it until after they’ve had 20 dates together. This leads to a montage of the two of them spending time together and just generally enjoying each other’s company which always makes me smile, because if I’m being honest, it’s these kinds of moments I always think about when I think of two people in love.
Eventually though, we’re forced to get to the difficult part of when the 20th date finally comes and naturally Andy screws it all up when his insecurities bubble to the surface which results in a big fight between him and Trish. I have to admit that I’m a bit torn on this moment. While I do acknowledge that I believe these characters would do this kind of thing at this point given what I know about them, it is still a third act breakup which you of course know isn’t going to stick and these characters will patch things up and get back together in the end. On the other hand though, it does result in the best comedic payoffs of the movie in my opinion.
What follows is Andy riding off on his bike in a blind rage to go drinking until he meets up with the girl he saw in the previous scene when Cal was giving him his ‘ask them questions’ tip. Her name is Beth (played by Elizabeth Banks) and she is horny so she takes Andy back to her place for a little fun. When they start getting busy, Andy takes his shirt off to reveal that his waxing job is still on point which is a pretty funny reveal since at this point in the movie I had completely forgotten this had happened earlier so it was a bit of a fun surprise to see that again.
You look like a Man-o-lantern. -David
Soon Beth goes to the bathroom and starts masturbating in the tub with a shower hose which makes the audience and Andy very uncomfortable, so of course he has a change of heart and goes to leave when he finds that apparently his friends (Jay, Cal, and David) are waiting for him in the other room. They say in the movie that one of them still had a key to the apartment from when they lived there in the past, but it wasn’t established in the movie previously so it’s a bit forced, although it is still funny to see Andy go to leave just to see his friends casually observing his sex life. Why are they there though? As it turns out, they were just as concerned for Andy’s relationship with Trish as he was as soon as he realized Beth was creepy. What’s nice about this is how it shows that each of these characters has their own mini arcs which end up coming together by this last scene here, even if Cal does end up sleeping with Beth in the end.
Andy bikes his way back to his place where Trish is already waiting for him and our comedic payoffs start popping off in earnest now. Funny thing, Trish found the big box of porn which David never took back and of course she’s not happy about it. To clarify as well, before Andy’s first date with Trish, Cal advised him to remove everything embarrassing from his place before she came to pick him up, so when she got there his front room was completely empty. As an explanation, Andy says he’s getting carpet put in. In this later scene where Trish is rummaging through his things, she whispers to herself “You didn’t get carpet put in”, as she realizes he lied to her which is also pretty funny. There’s also this running joke throughout the film that people believe Andy is a serial killer since he’s such a polite quiet loner, so here Trish also starts to believe Andy is a sexual deviant and/or trying to kill her. She also mistakes a Mentos for a roofi drug which is pretty funny. The only one of these jokes that’s forced to me is when Trish finds a model vagina that had appeared in one of the previous scenes when Andy took Trish’s daughter Marla to a birth control clinic to get information which ended up being more educational for Andy than Marla. Why it seems forced is because we never actually saw Andy take the model vagina, we just saw him dismantle it and poorly reassemble it at the clinic so I feel like this is more of a continuity error.
Easily one of the best jokes in this portion of the movie for me is essentially the realization that all of the tips that Jay, Cal, and David had given Andy up to this point weren’t helpful at all. In fact, they were completely useless. We see in this scene how all of the tips they’ve given him up until now have actually done more to hurt his sex life as opposed to help it. Granted we were already kinda seeing that throughout the course of the movie in real time, but here is when they truly become apparent. All of the tips Andy’s been given have had some hand in destroying his reputation with Trish at this point from the box of porn, the sowing multiple seeds with different women so it’s more likely you’ll get a request for sex, to the manscaping, all of it has damaged his image with Trish. This is why this part is the funniest of the movie to me, because it also makes all of the previous scenes feel like they were building to something which is great for a self-contained movie.
Of course with discovery after discovery, Trish can’t take it anymore and she speeds off in her car with Andy chasing after on his bike. This scene doesn’t take very long and ends up amounting to a flip stunt with Andy crashing through two billboards being carried on a semi truck (funnily enough advertising the same aphrodisiac on the bus earlier) and landing on his back in front of Trish’s car. Naturally Trish gets out, Andy finally admits he’s a virgin, they make up and live happily ever after. This is another of those moments which feels especially moviesque which makes it feel more off. Another one of those reminders that the people you’re watching are in fact actors playing roles and not two people coming to terms with their shortcomings in real time. I know every movie, scratch that, every story needs a climax, but it needs to be one that matches the tone of the story. That’s where this scene fell flat for me.
In the end Andy and Trish get married and actually end up consummating it! It feels genuine and properly goofy as they don’t shy away from the fact that Andy is of course inexperienced and ends up tapping out too early until it cuts to 2 hours later when Trish is completely exhausted and Andy’s still riding the ‘Just Lost My Virginity’ high.
After all is said and done, we end up having a musical number to end out the film where each of the notable characters in the story show up to sing the song Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by The 5th Dimension which I think is fun and done pretty well, but I do have a bit of a gripe. Given the subject matter of the story, couldn’t they have done Like a Virgin? It would’ve made so much sense, especially considering that song was also originally written to be sung by a man and also would’ve been perfectly goofy and odd and in keeping with the ending they went with anyway, but either way that’s the whole story.
When I first watched this movie I had this attitude about me that was like “Oh yeah, I’m totally above this material”, you know, really arrogant and pretentious, although after having seen this movie several times for the sake of this review, I’ve learned to appreciate a lot of the little touches and small moments that do appear in the film which allow me to enjoy it more. For what it wants to be, I think it accomplishes it well. I will reiterate what I said at the beginning of this review as well that I don’t necessarily think this film is a comedic classic, but for movie lovers who’re in the mood for a good laugh and/or a relatable experience, this definitely isn’t a bad choice. I can assure you there are certainly many worse choices to make when it comes to comedy, and I’m sure this’ll at least get some laughs out of you even if it is dated.
Despite the socially unconscious moments that take place in the movie, as an LGBTQ+ person myself (who doesn’t speak for the whole community but just wants to offer her own opinion), while the scenes that do appear in this movie that are derogatory can be painful, they’re at least brief and few, and there are many other fun moments in the movie to balance it out if you’re willing to look past them.
One of the things that serves as the perfect summary for this film for me is the audio commentary. After watching and listening to the commentary track for the movie, while there is some discussion of what the process was for creating scenes and coming up with ideas, most of the track has the attitude of just “Sure, let’s make a movie” which is the exact casual attitude I would expect for a movie like this to have. This attitude permeates throughout every line read, every scene, every camera angle in this movie and it’s easily what gives it its signature charm.
For my usual film rating that I give out to each of the movies I’ve reviewed so far (except one), I’d like to rate this movie 3.5/5 Kelly Clarksons.
So if you’ve never seen it, feel free to turn off the lights, light some candles, turn your demon statuettes around, and settle down with The 40-Year-Old Virgin for your weekend movie night this week.
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned by their respective copyright holders which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who only talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Yet)
