It's a little long, a lot lowbrow. But The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a stitch. See it if you could use a laugh.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
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Reviews Counted:174
Fresh:148
Rotten:26
Average Rating:7.2/10
Consensus: Steve Carell's first star turn scores big with a tender treatment of its titular underdog, using raunchy but realistically funny comedy to connect with adult audiences.
Runtime: 2 hrs 13 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: 40-year-old Andy Stitzer (Steve Carrell) has done quite a few things in his life. He's got a cushy job stamping invoices at an electronics superstore, a nice apartment with a proud collection of... 40-year-old Andy Stitzer (Steve Carrell) has done quite a few things in his life. He's got a cushy job stamping invoices at an electronics superstore, a nice apartment with a proud collection of action figures and comic books, good friends, a nice attitude. But there's just one little thing he hasn't quite gotten around to doing yet--something most people have done by his age. Done a lot. Andy's never, ever, ever had sex--not even by accident. So is that such a big deal? Well, for Andy's buds at the store, it sure is. Although they think he's a bit of an oddball, there's certainly a planetful of stranger (and homelier) guys who've at least had one go at having a go. They consider it their duty to help Andy out of his dire situation and go to great lengths to help him. But nothing proves effective enough to lure their friend out of lifelong chastity until he meets Trish (Catherine Keener), a 40-year-old mother of three. Andy's friends are psyched by the possibility that "it" may finally happen...until they hear that Andy and Trish have begun their relationship based on a mutual no-sex policy. Comedy writer and producer Judd Apatow (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, TV's Freaks and Geeks, Kicking & Screaming) makes his feature film directorial debut with The 40 Year Old Virgin, starring Steve Carrell (Anchorman, Bruce Almighty, TV's The Daily Show) and Catherine Keener (Being John Malkovich, The Interpreter) and an ensemble cast including Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Leslie Mann, Gerry Bednob, Shelley Malil, Chelsea Smith and Nancy Walls. Apatow also co-writes the script with Carrell and produces along with Shauna Robertson (Elf) and Clayton Townsend (The Skeleton Key). [More]
Starring: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco
Starring: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Leslie Mann, Jane Lynch
Director: Judd Apatow
Director: Judd Apatow
Screenwriter: Judd Apatow, Steve Carell
Producer: Shauna Robertson, Clayton Townsend, Judd Apatow
Studio: Universal Pictures
Reviews for The 40-Year-Old Virgin
It's not great moviemaking -- it isn't as accomplished or funny as the best of the Farrelly brothers' films, say -- but it's got real appeal.
Steve Carell plays the title character in a charmingly bent comedy about a likable geek's progress from action figures to real action.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin is a kooky kaleidoscope of a film, where right is wrong and smart is stupid.
Hilarious and imaginatively crude with a surprising sweet and subtle aftertaste that prevents it from flopping, limp and brainless, into the sugary abyss of romantic predictability.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin is often hilarious, thanks to its makers' willingness to go in surprising directions with their humor.
The characters are over 30 so the humour and situations are far less juvenile than in abominations like Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo or any number of Will Ferrell slapstick comedies.
The whole film is about embarrassment, about those moments of clammy vulnerability when the world just turns and stares.
A Kooky Virgin. The 40-Year-Old Virgin is comedy's best bet this season.
Such a well-balanced mix of the gross and crude with the sweet and sympathetic that it transcends its inadequacies in a way that may make even the most suspicious woman let down her guard.
This film manages to sustain its laughs for the entire film, and when it takes the expected turn toward sweetness and sentimentality, it does so with such forcefulness, with such conviction, that you believe in it.
... for all its limitations, achieves its primary goal: making you laugh. You may hate yourself for doing so, but you'll laugh just the same.
An undeniably likable quality helps make this smutty, silly late-summer entry more entertaining than many of its more polished counterparts.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin offers some sparkling insights about the cumulative effects of performance anxiety, about how guys struggle with the transit from boys to men with little help from their pals.
The good-natured tone of the film and the wonderful comedic talents of the entire cast -- especially Carell -- make the gross-out moments charmingly relatable.
The answer is, unequivocally, yes. Yes, Steve Carell can carry a movie.
While it trawls the depths of bad taste, it also maintains at its core something humane and universally identifiable (even if it is corny) that puts it in the special league of films that are at once nasty and nice.
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