>40 Year Old Virgin
A decent film held down by societal norms, runtime requirements, and a muddled tone. It initially begins as a comedy against its protagonist, a 40 year old living in a retirement community played by Carell. He rides his bike, lives for his hobbies, and is mild mannered but polite, even charming. He goes about working at !Radioshack in a dead end technical job with associates decade(s) his junior, all of whom represent emotionally stunted and vulnerable male archetypes. Malco's character cheats on his wife because he's afraid of commitment and in a marriage with a woman who he thinks is likely to cheat on him due to her job as a club representative. Rudd's character is hung up on an ex-girlfriend to the point of obsession, repeatedly breaking down as the runtime goes on. Rogan's character is a sex pervert who isolates his emotional side from the world outside of his books, and he became like this due to the controlling role of his father. All of these descriptions would make for fine characters if the film was more akin to Flickering Lights, but the film fluctuates between advocacy for self-acceptance and sex obsession. There are tender moments between the male cast as they learn about each other and Carell's lifestyle, but the film has large and obvious portions cut from it and many jokes that fall flat. For example, Malil and Bednob's characters do nothing for the story. They're Hindu and Pakistani, but you can only understand this if you know the ethnicities of the actors. Nothing is done with this dynamic either. Bednob sits at the poker table (but does leave early), and both have minor drama with the rest of the cast, implying a greater role in the group at some point in production. These ultimately draw from the runtime, and many, many scenes and characters like them exist. Arguably, the heroine, Keener's character, is one of these characters. Despite feeling second best to Carell's hobbies, Keener ultimately accepts Carell and has no reaction beyond, "That's a good thing," and "I thought you were going to kill me," to Carell being a virgin. The first does nothing for the message, and the second is a rehash of Rogan's impression of Carell as a serial killer, something Rogan came to admit to Carell after getting to know him. She and her children are rehash characters because the films of the time demanded a heroine, and the societal expectation was and is that Carell will stop being a manchild despite being completely content with his life before coming out of his shell. Due to these extraneous characters, plots, and jokes, the comedy and drama are scattershot, and no character except Carell has an arc. Even then, Carell's arc lacks a final act. It skips immediately to its conclusion. This can be seen with the main four as well. Malco's wife is suddenly pregnant, but he shows insecurity with her being a club rep at the party celebrating this. The plot demands a conclusion with the heroine and the story is pushing the runtime of a standard picture, so this is resolved by showing them happy with their child at the timeskip wedding. Rogan has sex with a woman he introduced to Carell who the group agrees upon being a freak as she masturbates with a showerhead. Despite alluding to her being freakier than him, this arc is once again resolved at the wedding with them happily together in the bleachers. Rudd falls for a girl Rogan hires for his sake, and she alludes to being tied to the mob given her heavy Italian-American accent and stating she would pay to have her ex killed if she could. This arc is resolved at the wedding. The wedding itself is almost a dream-like sequence, and this isn't intentional because the film ends with two random song numbers.
To prevent this post from taking an entire page, I'll give an idea of a more perfect version of the movie: Shift the focus from Carell to his friends after the midpoint and extend the movie to three hours. The first portion would be focused on Carell opening up to the group and the group opening up to each other because of Carell's presence as Carell becomes disillusioned with women but the group find what they think is love, it would mostly be the existing film. In the second half of the film, have Carell and Keener get together and follow their story but have the rest of the cast's run parallel. Malco becomes paranoid that the kid may not be his. Rudd finds out what it's like to be on the receiving end of obsession, constantly monitored by a woman he thinks might be in the mafia. Rogan realizes what he looks like to everyone else as he tries to be romantic with a complete sex pervert. Ideally, she would replicate the horsefucking he spoke of at the beginning of the movie. The three take what they've learned from Carell and each other to resolve their situations. Malco is honest with his wife. Rudd focuses on himself, perhaps entering therapy with, comedically, a female therapist. Rogan admits to the group that he's a writer and announces he has been writing a book which, comedically, is either bad or emotional but received with encouragement from his friends. As the group focuses on their own problems, Carell still has his breakup with Keener, even including the callback to Rogan saying he thought she would kill her. After he admits he's a virgin and proposes to her, Hart's character comes and kills him, comedically following up on the earlier scene between him and Malco. Hospitalized, Keener, her family, and Carell's friends stand around his bed and talk about him, calling back to each others' thoughts, again played for comedic effect. The camera rises from Carell as the scene transitions to him marrying Keener. The original sequence is exactly the same, but there's only one musical number. The musical number now leaves room for interpretation as to whether the film ends with Carell living or dying.