![]() I’ve spent enough time watching them work and talking to them about what they do that each time we sit down now, it’s just part of the same ongoing conversation. We also talk about how proud she is of Maude, her oldest daughter, and the way her acting seemed to get exponentially better on this film, and it’s sweet how emotional Mann is about Maude’s work. I hope she ends up e-mailing him, just because that would be the greatest e-mail ever sent. ![]() We were talking about one of those friends who got upset with me, and you’ll hear Mann asking me repeatedly to give up the name of that person. I wanted to dig into that idea of whether it’s important to be “likable,” something that I find really bizarre, and they were totally onboard. Sitting down to talk to Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann is very comfortable by this point. I have friends who seem to have friction-free marriages, and I envy them their lack of turbulence, but Pete and Debbie strike me as authentic precisely because of how raw things are between them. They may look dysfunctional to anyone else, and even to themselves sometimes, but this is how they work. Look at how angry Pete gets when the mom played by Melissa McCarthy makes some crack about Debbie, and look at how well Pete and Debbie come together when dealing with McCarthy in the principal’s office. ![]() And while they will pull each other to pieces over their flaws and their weak spots, woe be to the outsider who criticizes either of them. They communicate, but in order to really get through to each other, it’s like they have to warm up to it with conflict. They fight like crazy in this film, but there’s an undercurrent of love that is complicated by how they talk to each other. I see something very real in the way she deals with Pete (Paul Rudd) in the film, the way she tries to reach out to him. They get actively upset at the mention of the movie, and it’s because of their reaction to the characters. I think Debbie is a great character, and part of what’s been interesting about the release of “This Is 40” is the truly heated conversations I’ve had with some friends who didn’t like it. She’s ready to be wide open to experience, ready to have fun, ready to laugh and play, but when she feels wronged, she only has that one volume, full blast. That’s sort of Debbie and her relationship with the world summed up. I can’t let you in ’cause you’re old as f**k. I don’t want to be the one to pass judgment, decide who gets in. You f**king f*g with your f**king little f**gy gloves.” You’re a doorman, okay? You’re a doorman, doorman, doorman. You know what? You may have power now, but you are not God. You’re just some roided out freak with a f**king clipboard. What? Am I not skanky enough for you? You want me to hike up my f**king skirt? What the f**k is your problem? I’m not going anywhere. “I’m not going to go to the end of the f**king line! Who the f**k are you? I have just as much of a right to be here as any of these little skanky girls. Her rant manages to do it all, and the reaction from Robinson is solid gold. ![]() It’s amazing, profane and well-observed, and what starts as a joke gets very real, then completely surreal, all in the space of about two minutes. I’m going to bet most fans of that film think of the same moment first when they think of Debbie, that great scene when she is trying to get into a club and Craig Robinson plays the bouncer that has to explain why he can’t let her in. She’s great all the way through “Knocked Up,” but the moment where I fell for the character completely came about 2/3 of the way through. The thing I love in the characters she plays in his films is the way she mixes this remarkable frankness with an intense vulnerability. I think it’s pretty safe to say that no one writes for Leslie Mann the way Judd Apatow does, and it’s been fascinating to see the evolution of that from “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” until “This Is 40.” ![]()
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