This Is 40

I saw five movies less than a month- four of them in two weeks - so I've fallen behind in my movie reviewing. Now that I've tapped out the Oscar nominees, I have time to write a little...

This is 40 is a brutally honest and funny portrait of a typical couple burdened with running a family household with two jobs, and the "golden handcuffs" of unrealistic social expectations. I had a hard time sympathizing with a couple on the brink of bankruptcy...who live in a million-dollar house and drive a Lexus and a BMW. I'm all for following your dreams, but it's the height of narcissism for a music lover who can't keep a job in the dying music industry (Paul Rudd) to start his own boutique record label? He had two kids to feed! The core issues for their marriage struck hard, but I had to laugh at Paul Rudd in the parking lot, crying in his BMW 5 series. Leslie Mann, meanwhile, at age 40 and 1% body fat, lies about her age, smokes on the DL, and may exercise compulsively. To conclude, I have to ask the same question I asked about the Nancy Meyers movies Something's Gotta Give and It's Complicated: wouldn't this movie be equally good if the characters weren't millionaires?

Bike helmets save lives, and are inherently funny and
emasculating, all at the same time.

 THEATER NOTES: Kinda weird for a single 40-year-old man to see This Is 40 alone. I didn't plan it- I arrived too late for Zero Dark Thirty, bought a ticket for This Is 40 instead. Is "40" ten better than "30"?
Regal Fenway