Film finds humor in looking for friendship
ROGER MOORE
Orlando Sentinel
“Bromance,” setting up a “man date” — who knew male bonding could be so complicated?
That’s the funny premise of “I Love You, Man,” a movie for grown men who don’t get together and play touch football on Sundays, who don’t have a poker game, don’t grab a beer “with my posse” after work.
That’s who Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is. He’s an LA Realtor whose friends are all women. It’s not a real problem until he proposes to one of them (Rashida Jones). Her friends convince her that she should worry that having no homeys to hang with will make Peter “clingy.”
And he’s concerned because gruff dad (J.K. Simmons) and gay personal-trainer brother Robby (Andy Samberg) aren’t the best options for best man. The jerks at work and the guys he fences with aren’t good enough sports to make the cut. Peter has the taint of “nerd.” They’re just not that into him.
Mom (Jane Curtin) tries to set him up with man-dates. His fianc e gets her friend (Jaime Pressly, bitter and biting) to make her husband (Jon Favreau, hostile and hilarious) to bring Peter into his poker game — with disastrous results.
Then, just when he’s given up looking, Peter’s Mr. Right comes along. Sydney (Jason Segel) is sloppy-casual, a scooter-driving hipster who crashes Realtors’ open houses. Being hip, he is also wise.
“Hooking up is easy,” he tells Peter. “Finding platonic male friends isn’t.”
Rudd and Segel, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “Knocked Up” co-stars, have an interesting buddy-picture rapport. Rudd dials down his snark and channels his inner geek to capture Peter’s befuddled charm. Segel wears his cool frumpiness with ease. It’s no stretch to see him as a single man who loves “chillaxing,” who refers to his garage apartment-home as a “man cave,” who smokes too much weed and has way too many musical instruments — the better to cover tunes by “the greatest band ever,” Rush.
Oddly, in Rudd’s last “bromance” (“Role Models”), the hipster-doofus pal was into KISS, “the greatest band ever.”
The boy-bonding stuff is offhanded and awkward. Director John Hamburg (“Along Came Polly”) re-creates a nice “Annie Hall” bromantics-in-silhouette moment and peoples his picture with supporting players who don’t let him down in scoring laughs.
It’s raunchy, a little rude, but funny on a realistic, human level.