"CATCH YOU FUCKERS AT A BAD TIME?"

The 40 Year-Old Virgin (20th anniversary revisit)

August 19, 2005

I completely forgot that I reviewed THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN when it came out in 2005, but there it is. It’s not the kind of movie I normally review, but I thought it would be important to include in this series as the most influential comedy of the summer and as the opposite of WEDDING CRASHERS. That one was about smarmy well-paid pickup artists really falling in love while trying to just get laid via deception, this is about an awkward dork who works as a stocker at an electronics chain store and doesn’t own a car who has spent his life deliberately not trying to get down women’s pants, and the lie to the woman he’s falling for is just not telling her that he’s okay with not having sex yet because he’s scared he’ll do a bad job.

SUMMER 2005Steve Carell (last seen in BEWITCHED) plays Andy, friendly but socially awkward action figure collector whose life changes after his co-workers David (Paul Rudd, HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS), Jay (Romany Malco, URBAN MENACE, TICKER) and Cal (Seth Rogen, DONNIE DARKO) very reluctantly decide to invite him to fill a vacancy in their after-hours poker game in the store. He does such a bad job of joining in their locker room talk that they figure out he’s a virgin and make it their quest in life to help him change that. “From now on your dick is my dick. I’m getting you some pussy,” vows Jay.

But I think it’s kinda sweet that they seem to genuinely want to make his life better, and this includes not only bringing him to bars and giving him bad pickup advice but even David taking him for coffee on a break and being informed it’s the first time they’ve talked for more than 30 seconds. David sort of takes on the best friend role and the joke of his character is that he’s unhealthily fixated on a past relationship, while Jay’s problem is not being loyal to his current girlfriend Jill (Erica Vittina Phillips, HOW HIGH, FRIDAY AFTER NEXT). Jay is the most out-of-line womanizer among them, giving him many of the laughs, but he also goes through some life changes. Cal actually doesn’t get as much of a backstory, but he’s their younger, cooler co-worker who wears Nirvana Nevermind, Sonic Youth Dirty, GZA Liquid Swords and Public Enemy Fear of a Black Planet t-shirts. He enjoys honoring the important albums of the first half of the ‘90s.

Meanwhile Andy is actually developing a genuine relationship with Trish (Catherine Keener, SURVIVAL QUEST, OUT OF SIGHT, DEATH TO SMOOCHY), who he just met as a customer and she gave her number to him. The one that actually works started from normal human interaction and just being himself, while all the attempts to put on an act get him puked on and stuff.

It’s an interesting time capsule of a 20 year old view of nerd culture. Andy’s apartment-filling (but not cluttered) collection of vintage action figures is treated as his defining lady-repellant, though I feel confident that wearing bad polo shirts tucked in and combing his hair that way would be a bigger factor. But I think it has sort of a neutral stance, acknowledging that his hobby and playing video games makes him not a stud without making him a caricature like in earlier nerd depictions.

His collection brings him together with Trish because her job is selling things for people on eBay (and she must be really good for the amount of money they claim he earns just by selling toys) but the only time we ever broach the topic of how he feels about selling them is during an angry outburst, the sincerity of which is up to interpretation. Maybe he’s giving up something that’s important to him just to impress a woman, maybe they’ve become a burden and he’s decided he’ll be happier without them, we don’t know. Not really the point I guess.

I didn’t necessarily think there would be a bunch of “that didn’t age well” jokes in here, but there’s quite a bit you wouldn’t see today. There’s a use of the r-word, no surprise there. The bigger one is an ongoing joke of the characters riffing on “you know how I know you’re gay?” (followed by reasons like“‘Cause you macramed yourself a pair of jean shorts”). It’s in the context of the most macho of the characters already having said “Dude, it’s not a big deal, you like to fuck guys” when he thought Andy’s lack of knowledge about women meant he was gay, so it doesn’t come across as sincere bigotry, but you can’t really get around that to tease each other about it means it’s an insult to be gay.

There’s also a scene where Jay hires a prostitute (Jazzmun, HELLBENT) for Andy and is surprised to later hear her described as a “transvestite” and “tranny.” We can see it now as another trans panic joke, though to the movie’s credit Andy says “She was really nice, incidentally,” getting her pronouns right and everything.

Oh yeah, one last one. There’s a scene where a character played by Elizabeth Banks (SPIDER-MAN 2) brings Andy to her apartment for kinky sex and is in the bathtub pleasuring herself when he gets scared and tries to leave but he discovers that his trio of friends followed him into the apartment. When they leave Cal goes into the bathroom. Now, to be clear it is 100% explicit that she enjoys this surprise and consents to him joining her, but I think in 2025 a movie wouldn’t fuck around with him making the presumption that he can just enter a masturbating stranger’s bathroom, and I respect that about 2025.

I think the biggest thing that changed though is that this seems like a familiar type of comedy. At the time it was sort of the beginning of a movement. Judd Apatow was well known as a writer (HEAVYWEIGHTS, CELTIC PRIDE) and producer, but this was his directorial debut, kicking off what became a formula of using his group of regular cast members, focusing on protagonists who were supposed to be likable but not traditionally attractive, undergirding wild comical swings with an emotional sincerity, and encouraging improv from his actors which often become riffs with many variations on a joke.

(One crazy fact is that this was shot on film [by Clint Eastwood’s d.p. Jack N. Green!] and Technicolor sent them champagne for surpassing a million feet of film on their last day of shooting.)

Just seeing Carell as the star of a movie was a big deal at the time. Working with him on ANCHORMAN made Apatow want to see a Steve Carell vehicle. Carell suggested the idea based on a sketch he’d done at Second City – I suspect the “bag of sand” discussion was in that. The Office had only started in May so I still thought of him as a correspondent from The Daily Show made good.

I had watched Freaks and Geeks and I remember that it was exciting to see Rogen in such a major role – he was a supporting character on the show who became a favorite, and now this supporting movie role led to starring in Apatow’s followup KNOCKED UP and then officially becoming a screenwriter with SUPERBAD.

We take these things for granted now but this is such a stacked cast, with an early comedic role for Banks (though she’d been in WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER), it was before Jane Lynch was known from Glee, it was Jonah Hill’s second movie (he was in I HEART HUCKABEES), first for Mindy Kaling, third for Kat Dennings, sixth for Kevin Hart.

Come to think of it, even the poster was new and funny back then, that title with Carell doing that expression, it got a big laugh when you first saw it. Now you’ve seen that exact image and so many other things in the same style over two hundred million billion times, so they’ve been drained of all meaning. It’s gone. Nothing that was so fresh about THE 40 YEAR-OLD VIRGIN at the time feels new now that it’s, you know, provably very old. So I’m happy to report that this movie still makes me laugh.

It’s a cast full of funny people that all get numerous times to shine, most notably Malco, and I’d also like to single out Banks and Leslie Mann in smaller roles where they are crazy but also pretty sympathetic (despite inexplicable sexual attraction to Andy). Carell probly has the trickiest role and maybe falters the most as he tries to put a character with some cartoonish qualities into a real world where he’s expected to have an adult relationship and emotions. But I think it works, in part because they came up with this idea of indie queen Keener as a romantic lead in a studio comedy, correctly identifying her as a middle aged woman who’s very attractive in an unconventional (by Hollywood standards) way and quirky enough for us to believe she’d like an unconventional guy. I guess that’s the real trick of it – it’s a high-volume laugh movie where I don’t roll my eyes at them wanting me to care about the love story. That’s not easy.

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13 Responses to “The 40 Year-Old Virgin (20th anniversary revisit)”

  1. My favorite line in the “You know how I know your gay?” scene is “…because your dick tastes like shit!” The joke is that the guy saying it is (ironically of course) admitting that he knows first-hand what it tastes like, thus willfully making himself the butt of his own joke. For me that line justifies the scene, but your mileage may vary.

    I have always been sweet on Catherine Keener, to point that I don’t see what’s unconventional or counterintuitive about casting her as a romantic lead. She’s a smokeshow! (as the kids say)

  2. A classic. Haven’t seen this in a while, but two lines pop into my head all the time:

    1. “I’m painting your silver pants blue!” makes me feel very seen. In reality a guy like Andy wouldn’t paint straight onto an unprimered miniature, but it is just a fantasy. Maybe if we postulate that he used a metallic primer that happens to look like bare pewter? Most people would use white or black but I could see Andy having some intricate scheme that works best on metallic. Nowadays most miniatures are HIPS or 3d printed so I do worry that some younger gamers might not get the context. I also wish the unrated edition had a couple extra minutes to spare on his extensive collection. Anyway, for some reason my girlfriend stared at me long and hard after that bit.

    2. “When your baby is born, is he already in parole?” is such a fucking mean and funny line. Fortunately the two guys seem to like each other so it’s okay, but goddamn.

  3. The line that always gets me is at the end when Steve Carell crashes through the billboard truck and says (or something to the effect of), “There were two sides to that sign and they both hurt equally.”

    That line and the delivery just kills me every time.

    Love this movie.

  4. A lot of that ironic racism and homophobia really hasn’t held up. Part of the joke is just the absurdity of the quips, and since the actors/characters are cool with gay people, the audience is supposed to know it’s all in fun. I’m a straight white dude, but I don’t necessarily think they’re offensive. It’s just they aren’t as funny anymore when racism and homophobia is back in full force.

    Similarly, there are a lot of gay panic jokes where clearly the joke is the anxiety of straight people. I supposed Seinfeld’s “Not that there’s anything wrong with that” still works. But the rest are just outdated.

    The first decade of the 21st century was also a time where people just naturally assumed we had moved past all this bigotry so it was a safe time to kind of poke fun at each other and these stereotypes. The election of Obama seemed to reinforce this belief. That was undoubtedly a misconception. I think some jokes have an expiration date, even if the intention is good.

    But I do remember enjoying Apatow’s movies. I liked the hangout feel of some of them, and as influential as they were, I don’t think anyone was able to recreate the magic of his best films. People started complaining that his movies had gotten too long around Funny People, but I’ve always found that one to be underrated.

  5. Saw this in the theater in Washington DC. The couple ahead of me were Latino. When Jane Lynch started singing the Guatemalan “love song” they were laughing a good 10 seconds before everyone else. It was a really neat experience in how jokes might hit different audiences.

    I loved this movie at the time, saw it a whole bunch on DVD (all the extended versions and alt gags), but have been reluctant to show it to my “alphabet mafia” step-child (their words). I don’t know that I would have a great defense explanation of the gay/trans jokes. Then again, they have seen Bill and Ted’s, which has a lot of f-bombs (the other kind).

    I think there’s enough talent and sweetness in the movie to offset the gay/sexist/racist jokes. Note that I feel the same way about Role Models (though can’t defend the KISS love).

  6. When it comes to the question “Is it funny?”, there is always a simple answer: The person who is being made fun of decides if it’s funny.

    There are a dozen arguments for why we as straight people might think it’s okay to laugh at “How do you know you are gay?”, but it might still be unpleasant to every gay person in the audience to listen to it and hear everybody around them laugh at it. (Think of the BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S scene in DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY.) On the other hand, I know at least one gay person who I can imagine being the loudest laugher in the audience during that scene.

    And yeah, I think most people are quite okay with the good old “It was a different time” disclaimer. As pointed out above, there was a time when even two most excellent dudes like Bill & Ted would yell gay slurs at others. But of course as the other disclaimer goes: “It was wrong then and is wrong now.” Especially now.

  7. “When it comes to the question “Is it funny?”, there is always a simple answer: The person who is being made fun of decides if it’s funny.”

    I’ll go ahead and disagree with maybe the exception that proves the rule which is comedians making fun of fascists to their face while the fascist sits there stonefaced. I don’t think That Guy has ever once laughed but there are plenty of good jokes about him. If you saw their reaction to the South Park AI bit, I think we can say that was 1) funny and 2) they don’t get to decide if it is funny or not.

    I think the “rule” only applies when you’re punching down, not up.

  8. I mean, we can all generally agree that fashist’s opinions don’t matter at all. Y’know, paradox of tolerance and shit.

  9. Seeing this movie in a bubble, upon first blush, makes it seem like the affections between the characters is fond and warm, and therefore the self-mocking homophobia is used to roast each other moreso than harm the marginalized. I think the best jokes are the ones where someone is also pointing the finger at themselves, and the hypocrisy is the funnier part about a joke that otherwise mocks the innocent.

    That being said, this movie helped Judd Apatow define an entire era of comedy, and there’s a line that can be drawn from his movies to the virulent strand of misanthropy that fueled “The Hangover” and its ilk. Movies like this test the guardrails, which is fine until someone comes along and lays the guardrails flat-out. I don’t even remember the gag in this movie about the transgender prostitute, but it seems like some people do, and that means we get something like “Lady Ballers” being treated as a real movie (THAT would be an INCREDIBLE Vern review).

    Kind of disappointed stardom came calling for just about everyone in this movie with the exception of Romany Malco. He’s got some of the best lines, and he had that HARD delivery on certain punchlines that meshed well with the more lackadaisical energy of the others in the cast. I think Apatow had a star vehicle set up for him, I wanna say it was called THE RECRUITER and it was about an army recruiter getting into hijinks. He would have NAILED that.

  10. I absolutely love this one – I think it is one of my favorite comedies of all time. I think a good comedy is hard to achieve, but this one – for me at least – ticks all the right boxes: balancing the raunchy side and the “heart” of the romantic relationship at the heart of the film, amazing group of comedians, memorable lines, etc.
    This is one of the few comedies that I have watched again and again and never got tired of it (along with Step Brothers – my other favorite comedy of that period of time).
    And while Steve Carell definitely deserves the praise here – going all in for a career defining role – I do agree with Glaive Robber that Romany Malco should have got more out of this movie – he is absolutely excellent here.
    As for the “gay jokes” – isn’t it the same for any movie, book, song, etc… from the past, that they eventually disconnect to some of the accepted cultural norms? Maybe comedies are hit harder as they make fun of things… but watch anything from 20 years ago and there will be something that will make you cringe – be it a joke, a way a gender or race is treated, etc… I just think that this is part of art and human nature. Not to say that it is not important, but maybe the silver lining here is to think that cultural norms have evolved in the last 20 years and therefore what could be considered as funny then is no longer the case for good reasons. I am more worried of the current overall political landscape which is going to attack a lot of the wins from the last 20-30 years…
    Anyway… 40 Years Old Virgin rocks…

  11. I’m also in the “I love this movie” camp!

    Definitely a comfort movie I can always pop on and enjoy. Like hanging with friends.

    I always get upset at the part when Carell and Keener fight because I know it means the movie is almost over.

  12. Haven’t seen this in forever, but remember liking it at the time. The “Age of Aquarius” sequence at the end really blew me away– I was young and uncultured enough to be very pleasantly surprised that one was “allowed” to end a movie that way.

  13. I was really surprised by how much I liked this movie, as it looked pretty sitcommy and maybe it is but it’s really funny. I liked this time of comedies where we were getting a lot of dumbass shit for awhile. But Apatow and his branches of actors, Will Ferrell coming up, and Stiller’s great run happening around the same time made for some good shit.

    I thought it had funny shit like that but still felt inclusive, of coruse I’m not gay so maybe I’d think different if I were back then. But I do have a few gay friends who throw those gay lines at me so I know they weren’t offended at least.

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