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      I Love You, Man   (2009)
 
   
 
Release Date : 18 June 2009
Rating : NC16 (Sexual References)
Genre : Comedy
Duration : 105 mins
Director : John Hamburg
Cast : Lou Ferrigno, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Jon Favreau
 
   Synopsis
 
In "I Love You, Man," a comedy from John Hamburg ("Along Came Polly," co-writer of "Meet the Parents," "Meet the Fockers," "Zoolander"), Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd, "Knocked Up" "The 40 Year Old Virgin") is a successful real estate agent who, upon getting engaged to the woman of his dreams, Zooey ("The Office's" Rashida Jones), discovers, to his dismay and chagrin, that he has no male friend close enough to serve as his Best Man. Peter immediately sets out to rectify the situation, embarking on a series of bizarre and awkward "man-dates," before meeting Sydney Fife (Jason Segel, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall"), a charming, opinionated man with whom he instantly bonds. But the closer the two men get, the more Peter's relationship with Zooey suffers, ultimately forcing him to choose between his fiancee and his new found "bro," in a story that comically explores what it truly means to be a "friend."

 
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   Review   by Vernon Chan
The quintessential Judd Apatow movie without the involvement of Judd Apatow, I Love You, Man takes Apatow’s ‘bromantic’ twist on classic Hollywood romantic comedy to its exquisite, logical conclusion, employing Apatow’s stable of actors and co-directors and refining his usual tricks of the trade, while one-upping the genre’s creator by a fair bit.

I Love You, Man is both a traditional romantic comedy and a bromantic comedy at the same time. The wedding plans of the lucky groom to be (Paul Rudd), having gotten past the all-important proposal to the luckier bride to be (Rashida Jones), stutters on the couple’s realisation that the groom has a grand total of zero close male friends in his life and needs to race against time to produce a proper best man for the wedding. Time for misadventures in male bonding, I say!

While generally the bromance movie does not allow the groom to run away with the best man, much of the improvements to the genre rests on the realisation that good-natured comedy can be made from its acknowledgement that homosocial relations (best buddies, male bonding rituals, guy talk) can be ambiguously gay and hilarious, instead of being used to create moments of comic discomfort. Here, it is achieved through the ‘serial date’ structure of the movie and the screen chemistry between Paul Rudd and Jason Segel.

As a result of the more relaxed, less hung up storytelling attitude of Hamburg and his collaborators, I Love You, Man is the least macho of bromantic comedies to date. Its comedic sensibilities should in fact appeal to a much broader audience than say Superbad: this one goes easy for movie watchers of all genders and persuasions.