I Love You, Man (Paul Rudd. Jason Segel, Rashida Jones) – Is a man with lots of women friends and no male buddies abnormal? The premise of this story is that he is. Paul Rudd plays Peter Klaven, a solid, but unspectacular, residential real estate salesman who is lucky enough to be engaged to Zooey, a beautiful woman (Rashida Jones), who loves him just the way he is. Her closest friends, a narcissistic band of cute airheads, think he’s great, but flawed, because he doesn’t have any close, male friends. He overhears them telling Zooey this, plus he has a problem in that he doesn’t have a best man (even though he has a brother with whom he’s reasonable close). So he spends the movie trying to find a best friend. People set him up on so-called “man dates,” which prove disastrous. One day, at an open house he has to sell his one big-money property, the home of Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), he meets a guy crashing the event just for the food. Jason Segel (Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and TV’s How I Met Your Mother) plays Sydney Fife, an investment counselor who spends every day screwing off. The two spend time; find a common bond in their love of the rock group, Rush; and having “guy fun.” We need tension in the movie so the relationship creates dissonance with Zooey. No one likes Sydney except Peter but even their relationship gets strained.
This film is more a traditional romantic comedy and buddy film than the grunge comedy that both stars are known for and this has elements of. But this is both the best of the grunge comedies, largely because it doesn’t devolve into the kind of schlock that Knocked Up and Pineapple Express do. It’s a run-of-the-mill chick flick, and that makes it OK with me. I actually enjoyed this film much more than I expected. It’s a good time in an era when there is a big gap between good comedies and those grunge and reefer flicks.