I Love You, Man explores male friendship with humor and dignity

I Love You, Man is an example of that rare beast: a modern, non-intellectual comedy that is not a parade of sub-moronic comic cliches, unbridled crassness, obnoxious stereotyping, and third-grade poop-humor. Instead we are here treated to a genuinely funny and heartfelt exploration of male friendship and a rather sensitive portrait of a certain type of man (Rudd’s character) who feels more comfortable with women, and who over the years has lost most of his male friends and now seeks to try to make some later in life. I found myself laughing for days thinking about the various scenes and lines from this film, and even the few instances of low-brow humor in the film are done so smartly and spontaneously that for a change they are actually funny. This is the advantage of having a comedy rest on the strength of its story, rather than the cynical manipulativeness so pervasive in comic films these days.

The performances of the two leads are really marvelous. Paul Rudd plays the awkward and nerdy Peter Klaven with a warmth and humanity that you usually don’t see in this type of comic character. Rudd makes the humor associated with Peter’s awkwardness funny and really hard to watch, but he never over-plays it, nor does he take the easy road of serving up a shallow stereotype. You still really like Peter despite everything (just as his fiancee does in the movie.) Rudd is simply a terrific actor, and this film really lets him shine.

Jason Segel is really fabulous as the cool but highly flawed and sometimes gross Sydney Fife, and his subtle performance really puts to shame the many performances of Seth Rogan in this very same type of role. Segel brings real depth to this character without ever letting him slip into a Roganesque idiocy and foulness. Sydney is a great guy, but also a really strange and in some ways unlikable guy. But you love him anyway because of the quiet warmth of Segel’s performance. Together, Rudd and Segel give us a wonderful portrayal of just how little surface-level idiosyncrasies really matter in the face of true friendship.

I found the scenes of the two guys bonding over their love of the band Rush to be surprisingly charming. Generating cheap humor out of the fact that 1980’s nerds adored Rush is beyond cliche at this point, but this film actually takes the high road and captures the joy and giddiness that these two geeks-at-heart jointly feel about the band.

Consider the scene where they fire up the amps and play Tom Sawyer, Sydney on guitar, Peter on bass, and both of them singing.  The scene is wonderfully honest and real and captures not only their nerdiness but also their genuine shared happiness. When they get to the drum break, they (like classic 1980’s nerds) “sing” the Neil Pert drum break as they play their instruments, and somehow this little display of extreme uncoolness comes across as the good-natured fun that it actually is, and you don’t look down on them at all. You don’t see this kind of restraint very often in comic films these days – it’s very refreshing.

The film was marketed around the simplistic and canned idea of guys being man enough say “I love you, man,” but by the time you get to the end of the film you have actually forgotten all about this concept, having been completely won over by the intelligent, insightful and funny story. As the two friends are re-united at the end and express their heartfelt male affection for each other, this film rises up to be genuinely moving without becoming smarmy, or overly serious, or descending into parody. It’s a wonderful ending to a really good film.

Rent it and enjoy!