Monday, November 3, 2008

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Review
After a devastating break up with his girlfriend, TV sitcom star Sarah Marshall, a heartbroken and depressed Peter heads to Hawaii for a little vacation to try his best to forget every detail of his relationship. But love laughs at Peter, because Sarah is vacationing in the same exclusive resort as Peter, along with her new boyfriend.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall Trailer




My rate &
Comment
* * * *
Funny! Even there was some quick nudity
and a heartbroken who just got dumped
there but its still funny :p
Directed by
Nicholas Stoller
Produced by
Judd Apatow, Shauna Robertson,
Rodney Rothman
Written by
Jason Segel
Starring
Jason Segel, Kristen Bell,
Mila Kunis, Russell Brand,
Bill Hader, Paul Rudd,
Liz Cackowski, Jonah Hill
Distributed by
Universal Pictures
Apatow Productions
Release date(s)
April 18, 2008
Genre
Comedy, Romance
Running time
Theatrical cut:110 min.
Unrated cut:117 min.
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget$30,000,000
Gross revenue$103,155,962

Plot
Composer Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) has spent five years adoring his girlfriend, television star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell), despite living completely in her shadow. His income comes from composing the score on a highly-rated CSI-type crime drama show Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime, a job that in actuality mostly consists of playing repetitive "dark and ominous" tones during forensic scenes. Sarah, whom he met on the job is a high-profile star of the show, is enjoying her place in the spotlight while trying to parlay her television fame into a movie career. While writing a puppet Dracula musical called A Taste for Love on the side, Peter, on the other hand, is usually the guy left holding her purse during red carpet photo-ops and accidentally omitted from acceptance award speeches.

Things take a twist when she breaks up with him right after he assumes she wants to come over for sex, and he suddenly finds himself alone. Trying to deal with the pain of losing her, he has one-night stands with various women, but besides becoming terrified of getting an STD, all this does is increase his stress and heartache before matters eventually culminate in an on-the-job nervous breakdown.

At the suggestion of his step-brother Bryan (Bill Hader) that he go somewhere to clear his head, Peter takes an impulsive trip to Hawaii, and is confronted by his worst nightmare: Sarah and her articulate, narcissistic new British-rocker boyfriend, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand) of the band Infant Sorrow are also staying at the resort. After Rachel (Mila Kunis), the sympathetic receptionist, watches the painful run-in at the hotel lobby, she gives Peter a free stay in the top-end $6,000 per night suite on the condition that he clean up after himself.

In a twist of irony, Snow is quite friendly to Peter, while Sarah initially and wrongly suspects he's stalking her. Between crying alone in his suite, drinking alcoholic cocktails from the early morning onwards, and tormenting himself with the reality of Sarah's new life as he bumps into her and Aldous around the resort, Peter finds relief when talking with Rachel whose laid-back approach tempts him to rejoin the world. Although they bond and get along well, she is also reluctant to move things forward too soon, because she too has been recovering from a recent heartbreak. Simultaneously, Peter becomes friends with many of the hotel staffers and, along with Snow, also offers advice to a devout newlywed named Darald (Jack McBrayer), a Mormon who is having trouble satisfying his new wife, Wyoma's (Maria Thayer) sexual appetite.

Throughout the film, Peter has flashbacks that reveal the negative aspects of his old relationship, which he mostly ignored or was completely oblivious to.

Sarah, however, isn't completely carefree either as she gets the word that Crime Scene has been canceled. Although initially putting on a brave face and seemingly feeling confident about her transition into movies, she is actually freaked out at the prospect of being forgotten now that the show is off the air and she is out of the spotlight. She initially turns to Aldous for comfort, however, not used to providing a shoulder to cry on nor being good at recognizing when needy actresses need extra comfort, he simply states that it's all great news since she can now accompany him on the upcoming worldwide tour. Sarah's response to this is one of quiet anger as she is neither happy with the fact that he hasn't bothered to tell her he is leaving on tour in two weeks, nor with his suggestion that she, "a working actress", just uproot her life and follow him around for eighteen months. She then bumps into Peter at the bar and informs him of the cancellation, which he takes in stride. She also ends up revealing some of her career-related issues to him, such as her frustration that "seemingly the only actresses to survive are the ones that show their cooter" or her fear that she doesn't have the frame to support plastic surgery. Peter manages to cheer her up, and she recognizes as much and begins to notice some of the things Peter used to do for her, all of which she previously took for granted.

Her renewed appreciation for Peter is further displayed when she gets jealous upon seeing him and Rachel prepare to go hiking. Going on a said hike, the two of them end up jumping off a cliff into the ocean and kissing for the first time.

Things take a turn again when Peter is asked to vacate his suite since "Dakota Fanning and her people need it" and given a room next door to Sarah and Aldous. Peter goes surfing and runs into Aldous out on the ocean. A cordial and honest conversation ensues during which they even exchange compliments, but ends abruptly after Aldous inadvertently lets on that Sarah and him were in a sexual relationship for about a year without Peter knowing. Meanwhile, slightly distraught Sarah approaches Rachel at the reception desk and under the guise of needing directions to the sushi bar, segues into mentioning that she saw the two of them together before her eyes begin to well up. Uncomfortable and awkward situation is ended by Rachel offering her a tissue and complimenting her looks.

Meanwhile, Peter and Aldous have a surfing accident on the ocean during which they both become unconscious. When he comes to, Peter wakes up in Sarah's suite where they have a serious conversation in which she openly states some of the things he did that led her to cheat and eventually break up with him.

Soon after, the two couples run into each other at dinner and end up at the same table. Sarah now realizes that she wants Peter back, even more so when her relationship with Aldous fizzles and he leaves her, giving Peter a warmer farewell than Sarah. In the end, when Peter comes to comfort her for her loss, she begs him to take her back. Though he is initially reluctant, they have a brief physical encounter that Peter cuts short, realizing he cannot get an erection because he is not attracted to her anymore due to years of enduring her repulsive and calculating behaviors. Deciding that she is not worth it if she didn't love him before, he tells her off, calling her the Devil as he leaves. Peter then decides to stay true to Rachel and divulges what happened between him and Sarah moments before, but it backfires – an enraged Rachel tells him to never speak to her again. Before he leaves the hotel, Peter wordlessly hands Rachel a topless photo of herself; it had been put in a local bar's wall collage by her nasty ex-boyfriend and Peter endured a beating from the bar's tough-guy owner to get the photo back to Rachel.

When Peter returns home he finally finishes writing his vampire rock opera over a course of personal reflection that allows him to fully recover from his breakup. The opera is soon staged as a black box theater production and on its opening night, all the staff members Peter befriended at the hotel are invited and show up, as well as Rachel, who didn't want to come but had been convinced to do so by the staff members. In the end, Peter and Rachel reconcile their differences and move on to continue their relationship.

A post-credits scene shows that Sarah later managed to get a job similar to her previous character on another crime drama called Animal Instincts which has Sarah starring as an animal psychic police officer.

Source: Wiki