The 40-Year-Old Virgin
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| The 40-Year-Old Virgin | |
|---|---|
 Official movie poster and DVD cover |
|
| Directed by | Judd Apatow |
| Produced by | Holly Bario Steve Carell Mary Parent Jon Poll |
| Written by | Judd Apatow Steve Carell |
| Starring | Steve Carell Catherine Keener Paul Rudd Romany Malco Seth Rogen Elizabeth Banks Jane Lynch Kat Dennings Mo Collins |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 19, 2005 |
| Running time | 116 min. 133 min. (Unrated) |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $26,000,000[1] |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a 2005 comedy film starring Steve Carell and directed by Judd Apatow. The film follows Carell, in the title role, in his efforts to have his first sexual relationship with a woman.
The movie was co-written by Carell and Apatow, though it featured a lot of improvised dialogue.[2] It also stars Catherine Keener and Paul Rudd, and features Leslie Mann (Apatow's wife) and Nancy Walls (Carell's wife) in small roles.
The film received its general U.S. theatrical release on August 19, 2005 and released on region 1 DVD on December 13, 2005.[3]
This film was ranked number 30 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies".
Taglines:
- Better late than never.
- The longer you wait, the harder it gets.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Andy "Helmkamp" Stitzer is a 40-year-old bachelor who works as an inventory clerk at Smart Tech, an electronics store, and lives in an apartment featuring a video game chair, and electronic drum set, a karaoke machine and a vast collection of action figures, some decades old. During a poker game, three co-workers (played by Paul Rudd, Romany Malco and Seth Rogen) share stories about their sex lives and quickly figure out, when it's Andy's turn to share, that Andy is a virgin. They resolve to help him lose his virginity.
Andy attempts to follow his friends' advice in a series of situations that prove to be sometimes life-threatening (being driven home by a drunken woman), sometimes painful (having his chest waxed), and sometimes based on misunderstanding (picking up an enthusiastic woman who reads into what he says a lot more than he means). But the comic mishaps help pave the way to a real relationship with Trish Piedmont (Catherine Keener), a customer and owner of We Sell Your Stuff on eBay, an online-auctions storefront across the street from Smart Tech.
While their relationship encounters some roadblocks, owing to Andy's fear of physical intimacy and some problems between Trish and her teenage daughter (Kat Dennings), the two end up married. They deliberately do not consummate their relationship until their wedding night, in a gloriously-celebratory and comic finale that transitions into an elaborate production number featuring Andy, Trish, their friends, and almost everyone else in the film performing "Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In."
[edit] Reception
[edit] Critical reception
Ebert & Roeper gave the film two thumbs up, Ebert saying "I was surprised by how funny, how sweet and how wise the movie really is" and "the more you think about it, the better The 40-Year-Old Virgin gets."[4]. The pair offered minor criticisms, with Ebert describing "the way she (Catherine Keener as 'Trish') empathizes with [Andy]" as "almost too sweet to be funny" and Roeper thinking it was too long.[4] Roeper later chose the film as the tenth best of 2005.[5]
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film a "charmingly bent comedy", noting that Carell conveys a "sheer likability" and a "range as an actor" that were "crucial to making this film work as well as it does."[6]
Rotten Tomatoes declared it the "Best Reviewed Comedy of 2005"[7], with 84% of 160 critics giving it a "fresh" review.[8]
In December 2005, the film was chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the ten best movies of the year, the only comedy film to be so recognized (though the comedy-drama The Squid and the Whale was also chosen).
[edit] Box office success
According to Box Office Mojo as of July 2006, the film opened at #1 ($21.4 million) at the box office, and repeating a #1 box office the following weekend. It grossed about $109.4 million domestically in a 17-week release and about $67.8 million internationally, for a total of approximately $177 million worldwide. It was 25th in gross globally, and 19th in the U.S. that year.[1]
[edit] DVD release
An unrated version of the film was released on DVD. It features additional and extended scenes which add 17 minutes to the length of the film. Those scenes include:
- A heated argument between Jay (Romany Malco) and Mooj (Gerry Bednob) over a "poached" customer
- A poker scene with alternate dialogue
- A scene where Andy (Carell) sees sexually provocative photos on magazine covers at a newstand
- A flashback scene featuring a young Andy's struggle to remove a girl's bra
- A longer version of a scene at a bar where Andy picks up a drunk woman
- Andy fast-forwards through sex scenes featured in a pornographic film, then imagines its star talking to him, with clumsy sex talk in a voice that turns into his own
- Andy's boss Paula (Jane Lynch) tells another of her employees that she would have sex with Andy "in a New York minute"
- Mooj complains to floor manager Andy about the shifts he's been assigned, then talks to Andy about the up-and-coming end to his series of 20 sex-free dates with Trish (Catherine Keener)
- David sells a television set to a customer who enjoys the Michael McDonald DVD that David has long tired of. When the customer asks David if he can throw in the DVD should he buy the TV, David gamely replies "Even if you don't buy it, I'll throw in the DVD!"
- Andy and Beth (Elizabeth Banks) have a "Who's on First?"-like exchange featuring the word "butt"
- An extended argument between Jay and a customer (Kevin Hart) at Smartech
[edit] Commentary track
The unrated version included a feature-length commentary track featuring Apatow, Carell, Rudd and several other members of the cast. Atypically, the commentary was recorded before the film opened. The track is as explicit as the film's dialogue: at one point the commentary track producer sends in a note to Apatow asking for "less semen, more emotion" in their comments.
The commentary mentions the following:
- The film originated in a conversation between Apatow and Carell on the set of Anchorman. Apatow asked Carell if he had any ideas for a film of his own and Carell pitched a couple—the second pitch, which led to the film, came from an idea that dates back to Carell's Second City days.
- The studio was worried that Andy looked like Jeffrey Dahmer, a comment that led to multiple improvised references to Andy's similarity to a serial killer.
- Adam McKay is credited with the idea of having Andy's buddies talk while they broke fluorescent tubes.
- To be sure they got the coverage they needed of the body waxing scene, four cameras were used simultaneously.
- The production used over a million feet of film, a milestone reached on the last day of filming and recognized with free champagne by the company providing the film stock.[9]
- According to Apatow the origin of "Boner Jams '03" (pornography compilation tape) came while Apatow was a writer on the 1994 film Heavyweights. Apatow stated while sitting around with the other actors after dinner actor David Bowe asked if they wanted to watch porn. Bowe played a compilation tape of porn which thus inspired Apatow to introduce it in the film.
The amount of improvised dialogue in the film was so significant that co-writer Apatow half-jokingly questioned the legitimacy of his writer's credit.
The commentary is not included on the R2 version of the DVD.
[edit] Deleted scenes
The following deleted scenes are included on the DVD:
- “Getting Ready” (:38) - Andy tries to get Cal’s approval over which shirt to wear; Jay and David exchange words.
- “Drunk Driving - Alternate Ending” (1:57) - Instead of Andy ending the date after Nicky’s “accident”, Nicky has Andy take the fall for her. She also doesn’t barf in his face as in the final theatrical version, but on the car floor.
- “’The First Time’ Karaoke” (2:02) - Andy sings a karaoke song when he celebrates with his SmartTech buddies.
- “Rooftop Confessions” (3:18) - The gang talks about their misadventures of their first time doing it.
- “Kid Customers” (:39) - David tries unsuccessfully to sell the robot toy to customers.
- “Andy and Jazzmun” (4:07) - an extended scene where Andy finds out Jazzmun is a transvestite prostitute.
- If the user inserts the DVD into a computer, there is a hidden bonus scene titled "Whack It," where Seth Rogen improvises about all the various ways he masturbates. In the commentary, Rogen mentioned that all of the things he said were actually true in his real life.
[edit] Trivia
- The grammatically correct way to spell the title is with two hyphens, one after "40" and the other after "year." When the movie was originally released, posters and the official website excluded the hyphen after "40" (making the title "The 40 year-old virgin"). The error was eventually caught and changed.
- This is Steve Carell's first starring role in a feature film. His two most well-known previous credits were as supporting characters (interestingly both newsmen) in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy as a dimwitted weatherman, and Bruce Almighty as an arrogant rival to Jim Carrey.
- Steve Carell was filmed actually having his chest waxed. He is actually screaming those lines with no preparation (aside from a loose outline of screaming, swearing and then apologizing). He was also presented with the option of trimming the hair before filming to lessen the pain, but declined in favour of authenticity. He further stated in an interview on Australia's Rove Live that the scene was unnecessarily painful because the waxers forgot to oil his nipples.[9]
- Additional scenes had to be filmed for the trailer, since so many of the film's actual scenes contain strong language.
- The pornographic film that Andy watches is Space Nuts. The actress appearing on screen is Stormy Daniels.
- In January 2006, both Carell and director / co-writer Judd Apatow were nominated by the Writer's Guild of America for Best Original Screenplay, alongside Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale, Cinderella Man and Crash.
- The woman who played the sex education counselor at the health clinic where Andy accompanies Trish's daughter to obtain birth control was Steve Carell's real-life wife Nancy Walls.
- This film was originally rated NC-17 but was changed back to R on an appeal.
- The film makes extensive use of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. The electronics store, for example, is located on Ventura in Tarzana; the bike accident sequence was filmed on Ventura Place, just west of Laurel Canyon in Studio City; and Delmonico's Lobster House on Ventura in Encino was also used for one of Andy's dates.
- The Smart Tech store is a play on the retail stores Circuit City and Future Shop, utilizing the similarities in their uniforms, floor layout, and exteriors.
- The film makes three interesting video game references, the first featuring Andy playing Tony Hawk's Underground 2. The second is with Andy's friends during the infamous improvised "you know how I know you're gay" riffs, when they are playing Mortal Kombat: Deception. However, they are using Nintendo 64 controllers, despite the game only being available on the PS2, GameCube & Xbox. The Console is actually an Xbox. The Xbox console is not actually in use when the final scene cuts to the television screen, as the 'on' light is not illuminated. Also, there are continuity errors in the scene when Andy's friends play Mortal Kombat. Throughout the scene, they are playing on two different levels, switching every few shots between the Nethership Interior and the Chamber of Artifacts. The third is the still image taken from an early Halo 2 announcement trailer, and is seen on Andy's TV when Dave brings over the box of porn. It is impossible that Andy could have been playing, as the level shown in the still was never featured in the full game, and the shot is of ingame footage, rather than a pause menu.
- Besides Steve Carell, a few other stars from the US remake of The Office can be seen in this film. Mindy Kaling plays David's ex-girlfriend Amy and Jenna Fischer is seen as one of many girls in the first club scene. Also, Phyllis Smith played Andy's mother in a flashback scene that was ultimately cut from the film. Featured actors Nancy Walls and David Koechner have made frequent guest-appearances on the show. It should also be noted that one of the casting directors on this film (Allison Jones) also is casting director for The Office.
- The film ends with the cast breaking into a song from the musical Hair ("Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In") which is reminiscent of a 1997 episode of The Simpsons ("The Springfield Files") where, at the end of the episode, the entire cast starts singing "Good Morning Starshine". In the DVD commentary for the episode, executive producer Al Jean good-naturedly noted this saying, "We did this before The 40-Year-Old Virgin."
- Seth Rogan drew up a list of expletives that Carrell uttered during the body-waxing scene, dividing those into 'clean' and 'dirty' ones, as shown in the 'Waxing Doc' extra on the DVD edition. Apparently, he couldn't decide if 'rim-sucker' was dirty or clean, so he put it in both lists.
[edit] References
- ^ a b The 40-Year-Old Virgin from Box Office Mojo
- ^ Commentary track for the unrated DVD version of the film.
- ^ DVD details for The 40 Year-Old Virgin from IMDb
- ^ a b Ebert & Roeper's Review in MP3 format
- ^ http://tvplex.go.com/buenavista/ebertandroeper/060102.html
- ^ Losing His Innocence, Not a Minute Too Soon, an August 2005 review from The New York Times
- ^ Best Reviewed Comedy of 2005 from Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ The 40-Year-Old Virgin from Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ a b Interview with Steve Carell and Paul Rudd - from IGN
