“The Forty Year Old Virgin” (Universal Pictures)
So this is what the entertainment world has come to – smarmy jokes about a forty year old male virgin. On paper it sounds horrible and on screen it is just passable comedy, yet “The Forty Year Old Virgin” is sure to find an audience desperate for anything that is even mediocre entertainment.
Steve Carell stars as Andy Stitzer, a mild mannered man who doesn’t drive a car but instead rides a bike. He also has a pristine collection of action figures that he treasures as his dearest possessions. He works at an electronics store in the stockroom and watches “Survivor” with his neighbors. He is also forty years old and has never had sex with a woman.
The movie makes an effort to say that Andy is just an average forty-year-old male who never had the opportunity to have sex. They try to make him the guy next door but c’mon. He rides a bike; he collects dolls; he watches “Survivor” with his neighbors. This is not your average forty-year-old male!
His co-workers discover he has never had sex and plan to remedy that situation. Of course these three guys are not the sharpest heads on the block. David (Paul Rudd) is despondent over his break-up with his girlfriend; Jay (Romany Malco) cheats on his girlfriend; and Cal (Seth Rogen) doesn’t have a regular girl. So the advice they give him doesn’t do much to help his celibate state.
Then he meets Trish (Catherine Keener), a divorced grandmother. The attraction is instantaneous and mutual but he doesn’t know how to explain his virginal status to her. And that is where the plot gets complicated.
Carell is okay as the hapless Andy. He delivers some of his lines in a way that gets laughs but a whole movie about him is mind numbing. Keener makes a pleasant co-star for him and is instantly likeable. The rest of the cast is okay but not dynamic except for Jane Lynch who subtlely makes points as his amorous boss.
The movie is rated R for profanity, sexual situations and nudity.
If you like adult humor, sexually risque adult humor, then you might get some laughs from “The Forty Year Old Virgin”; but for those who are looking for a solid story with some clever and intelligent funny moments this is not it. “Virgin” shoots for the basement humor every time, and stays there.
I scored “The Forty Year Old Virgin” a chaste 5 out of 10.
