How to fix Funny People (SPOILERS, maybe)
I was really confused by the long trailer of this movie, which seemed to give away the whole story. It doesn’t. The TV trailers have been even more confusing; hiding the drama and marketing it as another Apatow bromance.
I really liked this movie. I thought it was smart and hilarious and heart-wrenching at times. But it has a few problems. Here’s a quick fix:
- Make it shorter. Seriously. 1hr 45 minutes. That’s how long movies are. Stick to it.
- Make the Dramatic Question clear.
What’s the dramatic question? You don’t find out until the end of the movie, really, but luckily it’s pretty simple: “Will terminal illness spur this miserable man to change his ways and find true love?”
Now, this kind of dramatic question is distinct from say “Will the 40yr-old virgin get laid?” The latter deals with tangible elements. We know he’s a 40yr-old virgin and we can assume the movie isn’t about a 40yr-old virgin who has to solve a crime or win the big game. He’s got to lose his virginity; and when he does we know the movie is over. But Funny People is going to have a much harder time conveying the main goal of it’s protagonist to the audience. Fortunately there’s a really neat trick that screenwriters can use when they have a dramatic question like this: EXPLICITLY STATE THE DRAMATIC QUESTION. Ta-da!
This film would be so easy to market, and so easy to digest if there was only a scene, right around the 30-minute mark, in which Sandler tells Rogen that he wants to change and find true love and happiness.
Of course, you’re imagining this scene right now and it’s not working, but that’s because you have a weak imagination. Trust me, Apatow could have made it work. And it would be the second clip in the trailer too. So instead of saying, “What’s that new Apatow movie about?” We’d say, “I want to go see that new Apatow movie starring Adam Sandler as a miserable movie star who tries to change his life after being diagnosed with a terminal illness!”
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