The Loud Bassoon

The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
Directed by Judd Apatow
Written by Judd Apatow & Steve Carell

Really more sweet than funny, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a throwback to the tender sex farces we used to love (Losin' It, Porky's, My Tutor, Private School), minus the gratuitous nudity but with much deadlier accuracy when deploying its lighthearted potshots at "nerds" in the general sense. That is to say, a nerdy virgin watching Private School in 1984 would not necessarily identify with it, but a nerdy virgin watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin in 2005 will find that it hits rather painfully close to home.

And yet, as helmed by the benevolent and forgiving Judd Apatow (creator of "Freaks and Geeks"), the tone is more supportive than ribald (thanks to good-natured supporting turns by Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, and Romany Malco as Steve Carell's work buddies, who help him try to "get laid"), and the ultimate message is a hopeful one (thanks to a classy and honest performance by Catherine Keener, with whom Carell eventually "does it"). Even the big sex scene is played honestly, for the most part.

I expected a riotous pee-your-pants comedy out of this one, but instead found the A Christmas Story of losing-your-virginity movies. Now who will make the Shoah of losing-your-virginity movies?!

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Review by Ruthie Good


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