It’s Not Stalking, It’s Just An Unfortunate Coincidence | Even in Hawaii, Jason Segel can’t escape his ex-girlfriend in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL
Directed by Nicholas Stoller. Starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand. Now playing.
3 Stars
As Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote, “Breaking up is hard to do.” [Hmmm... This sounds wrong to me, but I don’t have time to look it up. Screw it: I’ll let it slide. —Ed.] Well, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the latest entry from Team Apatow (the guys who, as their trailers keep reminding you, brought you Superbad, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up) proves the adage true, at the same time disproving that whole thing about comedy being hard. Superproducer Judd Apatow and his gang of up-and-coming comedic talent make it look pretty damned easy.
This time it’s Freaks and Geeks/Undeclared alumnus Jason Segel’s turn in the spotlight. As the writer and star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Segel lays it all out for everyone to see, figuratively and literally, and the results are anything but forgettable.
After getting his heart handed to him courtesy of an out-of-nowhere breakup, struggling musician Peter Bretter (Segel), starts scrambling for anything to heal his broken heart. Listening to the same song over and over, destructive (and less-than-believable) one-night-stand revenge-sex marathons—nothing seems to take the sting off the split. The fact that his ex is Hollywood “it” girl Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), star of her own CSI-like TV show, doesn’t help matters at all. It seems that the only escape from heartache is... well, escape—in Peter’s case, to the sun-soaked beaches of Hawaii.
Sure, he’s going to the same resort Sarah just happens to endorse (and frequent), and the fact that she’s there right now with her current paramour, the nonsensically tattooed British rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), doesn’t make him a stalker—just a little creepy.
Like Peter, Forgetting Sarah Marshall sometimes comes on a little strong, its determination to win you over occasionally bordering on the edge of desperate (especially during a lengthy performance of Peter’s Dracula-inspired rock opera featuring an all-puppet cast that I’m still not too sure about). But at least the schmaltz is counteracted by heavy doses of screwball goofiness that should comfort even the most pathetic of jilted lovers.
The cast is great. Segel raises hangdog wistfulness to a new artform and Mila Kunis is a refreshingly sunny presence as Rachel, the sympathetic hotel clerk who might hold the key to healing Peter’s pain. There are also the obligatory cameos from Apatow-ites Jonah Hill and Paul Rudd, but Russell Brand’s vacant rock god is the real scene-stealer here—just imagine the love child of Mahatma Gandhi and James Blunt.
All in all, it’s a funny bit of crude but good-hearted fluff. Segel’s (soon-to-be-classic) naked breakup scene is hilarious while also being scarily relatable. In fact, most of Peter’s post-dump decline reminded me of my own Big Hurt—the one that really stuck it in and broke it off. (I still can’t hear “Nothing Compares 2 U” without misting up a little bit.) But now that Forgetting Sarah Marshall helped me see that the normal reaction to the sight of a naked man crying is hysterical laughter, I guess I don’t have to feel quite so alone anymore.
