Debbie (Leslie Mann) has it all. A perfect house. Two perfect kids. Two perfect cars. And one semi-perfect husband. But she’s miserable. And she’s in denial. She’s 40. This is 40! But if this is 40 and this is [her real life husband] director Judd Apatow’s sequel to Knocked Up perhaps it’s best to find the comedy in the can’t-face-it-all nonsense. And that’s what she and film husband, Pete (Paul Rudd) do. Except Pete has no problem turning forty, or farting in bed, or spending long spells on the toilet seat figuring out iPad crossword puzzles. But worse than that is the fact that his wife, Debbie, leave little sacred to the marriage by actually barging in on him.
In a million years, I can’t imagine doing that – bathroom door barging -to any past or present lover, husband, boyfriend, you name it. And it’s because of that, that the very passion Debbie’s character longs for in her relationship no longer exists. She also bitches. A lot! Perhaps being 40 is the least of her problems.
But as the story goes along, somehow she disarms us. We feel connected by Pete and Debbie’s typical family antics – the two daughters quarreling, the late mortgage payment (since sales figure are down – Pete has a record label and can’t sign anybody.) And then there’s the father-in-law (Albert Brooks) remarried to a younger woman and now he has three-test-tube triplets that Peter helps to support. Suddenly their problems seem a little too close to our own.
But it’s when we learn that Debbie’s employee (Meghan Fox) might be stealing money from the cash drawer and that Debbie’s father (John Lithgow) has been estranged for years, that she simmers down into the role of every woman that every woman watching might like.
The daughters (Apatow’s real life offspring Maude and Iris) steal the film – one obsessed with LOST and the other obsessed with love. Or the lack of it. The cultural references are hilarious especially when the older daughter gets into a TV show match-off with her father Pete about MAD MEN. Turning 40 isn’t so bad. So happy birthday and as a gift: ♔ ♕ ♚ 1/2