Not Quite Almost Famous
In the 1980s, John Hughes wrote, directed, and produced high school comedies and dramas that presented teenagers as something more than archetypes. A geek in one of his films wasn’t just a nerd with taped glasses and a pocket protector; he was Anthony Michael Hall, who defined earnest social awkwardness. A rich Hughes snob—say, Andrew McCarthy—drove the flashy, red sports car, yes, but his wealth and status often conflicted with his love for smart, down-to-Earth girls who made their own clothes. Hughes’ films were often unpredictable (at least in the path they took to get to the happy ending) and deeper than one might assume at first glance—much like teenagers.
Judd Apatow has been called this generation’s John Hughes. Though his audience is more targeted (he makes movies for and about emotionally stunted mid-twenties men), he’s known for blending raunchy humor and an honest portrayal of middle-class self-absorption with heartfelt moments of actualization for his characters. This resonance allows Apatow, like Hughes, to turn out a lot of very successful movies.
His latest, Get Him to the Greek, is a sequel to the Apatow-produced Nicholas Stoller comedy, Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Stoller returns as writer/director for a very different kind of movie, leaving behind the soul-searching relationship comedy of Sarah Marshall in favor of an over-the-top sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll road trip. Greek is a cross between Almost Famous and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and for awhile, it almost achieved those films’ level of effectiveness. Toward the middle, though, the movie revealed itself as unable to avoid the most troubling characteristic of most Apatow pictures: a lack of good editing.
In Get Him to the Greek, Russell Brand stars as Aldous Snow, a mega-rock-star whose last album—a hilariously inappropriate tribute to African orphans—flopped. Having lost his long-time girlfriend, Aldous relapses into hard drugs, drinking, and extravagant parties. An intern at his record label, Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) pitches a tenth anniversary concert at L.A.’s Greek Theatre, to generate hype and revenue for his endangered company. Green’s boss, Sergio (Sean “P. Diddy” Combs), sends Aaron to London to pick up Snow and fly him back to the states. The trip will also include a stop-over in New York for a promo spot on The Today Show.
As you might expect, Aaron’s trip is a disaster. Snow’s charm and power lead him to doubt himself and leaves him vulnerable to manipulation. Before long, Aaron is taking shots of absinthe and banging club girls in the bathroom—as well as drunk-dialing his ex-girlfriend. Outside of this outline, I don’t want to spoil too much else. Half the fun of Get Him to the Greek is following Aaron and Aldous and seeing where their crazy exploits will take them.
The other half is the team of Jonah Hill and Russell Brand. Hill plays a likable character for a change, rather than his typical conniving, sex-obsessed douchebag. It was nice to see him use the tenderness we’ve only glimpsed in films like Superbad; the downside is that the Green character is a little too naïve to be believable. He’s a twenty-something employee at a Los Angeles record company, for God’s sake, and has apparently never seen a movie or TV show where someone’s rock star idol turns out to be not such a nice person. I get that he’s supposed to be the audience’s gateway to this crazy rock world, but in this instance, Jonah Hill could have used a touch of Jonah Hill.
And Russell Brand was great in this. Get Him to the Greek opens as a This is Spinal Tap homage, and I would’ve loved to have seen a mockumentary about Aldous Snow; forget the Greek Theatre storyline: Russell Brand could carry an entire picture on charisma and improv. Brand’s wild-eyed intelligence and free spirit ooze out of his pores; he’s funny, but also sensitive and very dark. I’m not sure how much of his dialogue and story points were scripted (I hear that a lot of the debauchery was drawn from Brand’s real life adventures), but most of his scenes feel spontaneous—as if the other actors are genuinely trying to figure out how to deal with him as an actor, and not just as a character.
Which brings me back to the editing problem. The truth is, there’s about a half-hour’s worth of material that could easily have been trimmed from this thing: Aldous’ ex and their son; Aldous’ drunken, loser father; Aaron’s on-again/off-again relationship with his girlfriend, Daphne (Elisabeth Moss). All three of these sub-plots lead to maybe a half-dozen scenes that slow the movie down and blur its focus. While it could be argued that these stories are crucial to the arcs of the main characters, the scenes feel indulgent—especially when, at the end, we realize that the their intended purpose could have been conveyed in just a couple lines of dialogue (or left out altogether). Do we really need a five minute scene where Aldous, Daphne, and Aaron negotiate a threesome?
The real point of some of these scenes is, I guess, to allow more opportunity for humor. But like any project Judd Apatow is involved in, he lets scenes run past their logical cut point in the hopes that something funny will happen. It’s the desperation approach to comedy, and it almost always fails (it’s the same reason I never by the “Extreme, Unrated, Raunch-ified” edition of any comedy on video—unless it includes the theatrical cut). There’s no reason a comedy should be longer than an hour-and-a-half; as they say, brevity is the soul of wit. And Get Him to the Greek is ten minutes shy of two hours. For the first forty-five minutes, I was smiling and laughing out loud; then the film hit an unforgivably long desert patch that, fortunately, was redeemed by the finale.
I recommend Get Him to the Greek, but you may want to rent it. There’s little here that screams “Big Screen Experience”, although there is one scene in a Las Vegas penthouse suite that is deliciously cinematic (it involves fur-covered walls, a narco-cocktail called a “Jeffrey”, and P. Diddy hurling decorations across the room). That’s a shame, because if this had been a John Hughes comedy (which it absolutely could have been, twenty-five years ago), it would have been leaner, tighter, and possibly a classic.