Although I’m getting pretty tired of the Apatow crew appearing in so many comedies these days, I have to admit that I like Jason Segel well enough to see almost anything that he’s in. That’s why I decided to give Forgetting Sarah Marshall a try, despite the fact that annoying (to me) Apatow regular Paul Rudd is also in the film. Thankfully, Segel was up to the task of carrying the comedic lead, and Rudd had a relatively minor role, making for a pretty enjoyable feature overall.

Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Segel stars as Peter Bretter, a musician who composes the score of a hit weekly TV series called Crime Scene. Peter has been dating the star of Crime Scene, Sarah Marshall (played by Kristen Bell), for the past five years, and absolutely idolizes her. He does everything she wants, is content to hold her purse during red carpet photo ops, and doesn’t mind living in her shadow. So when Sarah suddenly breaks up with Peter — while he’s standing naked in his apartment — he’s dealt a crushing blow.

Peter does the usual guy things to try to get over the breakup: he drinks too much, has sex with lots of random women, and becomes a slob. But none of this is helping. He still thinks of Sarah, and can’t imagine a life without her. After having a total meltdown at work, Peter figures he should get away for a while. He goes to Hawaii, where he and Sarah had always planned to vacation, and promptly runs into Sarah — with her new boyfriend, singer Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) in tow.

With some help from the sympathetic desk clerk Rachel (Mila Kunis), Peter manages to snag the best suite in the hotel. It’s right next to Sarah’s suite, however, which makes her think that he’s stalking her. Peter must now decide whether to stay in Hawaii and deal with the Sarah problem head-on, or run away and try to work things out on his own. He stays.

The rest of the film then shows how Peter slowly comes to grips with the idea of losing Sarah for good. He reflects on his relationship with her, realizes how much of himself he sacrificed for her sake, and is eventually able to let her go. Along the way, Peter actually becomes friends with Aldous, gets to reject Sarah outright, and embarks on a new relationship with Rachel.

My Reaction: Forgetting Sarah Marshall enjoyed tremendous word-of-mouth buzz while it was in theaters, so I was looking forward to seeing this one. I think I might have let the hype get to me, however, because I was expecting the film to be a lot funnier than it was. Yes, there were several big laughs and numerous smaller chuckles along the way, but I wouldn’t call it a great movie — even as far as rom-coms go.

For one thing, it got a little tiresome seeing Peter be such a sad sack for 99% of the film. Yes, he had just broken up with the love of his life, yada, yada, yada, but still… his character was such a downer most of the time that I started to get a bit impatient with the movie. Plus, I had a hard time believing that Rachel would fall for Peter when a) he obviously still had issues with Sarah, and b) she would pretty much be a rebound girl (even though Peter said he was completely over Sarah).

Another thing that bugged me about the movie was the Paul Rudd character. He was completely unnecessary to the plot, and the fact that Rudd was cast just goes to show that the Apatow crew are looking out for each other. Or maybe my personal distaste for Rudd is clouding my judgment here. I don’t know, but I haven’t liked him in anything he’s done, dating all the way back to his days as Mike on Friends.

That being said, Forgetting Sarah Marshall was still a decent film. I thought Russell Brand was hilarious in most of his scenes (with a character that could very easily have bugged if played a different way) and I liked Kristen Bell a lot. If you can stand a few too many extraneous scenes and unnecessary characters, this film is worth watching. I give it 6.0 stars out of 10.