Forgetting Sarah Marshall

What’s the Story?

When his TV actress girlfriend, the titular Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), calls to say she's arrived home early from a trip and is coming over, Peter (Jason Segel) hustles to get his apartment cleaned and strips naked, hoping for an action-packed homecoming. Instead, she dumps him (while he's still naked), sending him into paroxysms of grief. To forget her, he heads to Hawaii -- but, as luck would have it, she's vacationing there, too, with her new beau, rocker Aldous Snow (British comic Russell Brand). In no short order, Peter careens from pining for Sarah to hooking up with hotel clerk Rachel (Mila Kunis). Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn't really all that difficult -- or is it?

Is It Any Good?

From the movie's skin-baring set-up to its end credits, you can't help but root for Peter, a musician who's wasted his talents scoring Sarah's stereotypical crime show instead of working on the vampire puppet opera that showcases his quirky sense of humor. Segel, who wrote the script, is as appealing here as he is on his own TV show, How I Met Your Mother. He has an ear for dialogue and manages to convey the complexity of relationships. And he's supported by a winning cast (his chemistry with Kunis is particularly fantastic) -- the most memorable are Brand, who's simply perfect as Snow, and Paul Rudd, who plays a surfing guru who's taken one toke too many.

But no matter how much you root for Peter, something's missing from this Judd Apatow-produced film when it comes to genuine laugh-out-loud moments. Chuckles, yes, but belly laughs? Not so much. That's because the scenes feel curiously un-punchy; it's as if we've heard these jokes before. Even the much-talked-about naked scene is a letdown (no lewd pun intended). It's just not as funny as it could be. That may be because director Nicholas Stoller allows the movie to meander from one mishap to the next without differentiating peaks from valleys.