抱歉，《四十不惑》：你是个成年人，成熟才有魅力

    与大多数随着年龄成熟的制片人相比，贾德·阿帕图(Judd Apatow)的 特点是：可以毫不费力地从成长角度来谈论他的职业生涯。他的首部重要作品《怪胎与书呆》，是讲述高中生生活的。《叛逆校园》中描写的是大学生。再之后的作 品主题指向了刚成年的年轻人，《一夜大肚》，乃至《四十岁老处男》，讲述的都是一个平凡老男人与一个典型的年轻人（或者是青少年）的问题。

 阿帕图(Apatow)最近的一部作品《四十不惑》，这部作品的题材完成了从青年向中年的过渡。作品的主角是一对已婚夫妇，他们肩负着更多的责任——经济负担和家庭生活是其中最主要的。但是这次出了点问题。这部电影的主角们沉浸在他们自己的幸福中，但方式与阿帕图（Apatow）以往塑造的其它角色不同。比较起阿帕图（Apatow）之前作品中迷茫浑噩的瘾君子和粗俗的异类，这部电影的两位主角表现得更悲观，更不那么引人注目。

皮特（音译Pete）（保罗·路德 （Paul Rudd ）饰）和黛比（音译Debbie）（阿帕图的妻子莱斯利·曼恩（ Leslie Mann ）饰）是一对陷入问题中的夫妻，他们是典型的阿帕图（Apatow）创造（的人物）。他们试图做正确的事情，当他们的努力不起作用时，就会生气激动，出口成脏。皮特马上要过四十岁生日了，但是在这之前，他必须处理一个接一个的危机。他的唱片公司负债累累，他的父亲（艾伯特·布鲁克斯（音译Albert Brooks））不断向他借钱。但最让他心烦的是他的婚姻生活已经黯然失色。在影片的开头，皮特（Pete）和黛比（Debbie）在淋浴中做爱，但是当皮特（Pete）承认自己事先服用过伟哥，黛比（Debbie）就立刻停了下来。她很愤怒自己的丈夫需要在**时服药，显而易见的潜台词就是，药物已经又一次提醒她自己已经不再年轻。

While most filmmakers mature with age, Judd Apatow stands out for how easy it is to talk about his career in terms of growing up. His first major work, Freaks and Geeks, was about high-schoolers. In Undeclared, he tackled college students. Later came young adults (Knocked Up), or, in the case of The 40 Year Old Virgin, a plain-old adult with a typically young-adult or teenage problem.

 

Apatow's latest, This Is 40, finishes the transition from youth to middle age. His main characters, a married couple, have more responsibility—financial obligations and family life chief among them. But something's not working this time. The film's principals are obsessed with their own happiness in a way that Apatow's characters have rarely been before. The result is that the two people at the center of the movie come off as more pathetic, and less watchable, than any of Apatow's previous aimless stoners and vulgar misfits.

 

Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Apatow's wife Leslie Mann), the couple in question, are typical Apatow creatures. They try to do the right thing, and when it doesn't work out, they react with an angry flurry of four-letter words. Pete's 40th birthday is approaching, but before it happens, he must deal with one crisis after another. His record company is in the red, and his father (Albert Brooks) keeps asking to borrow money. But what bothers him the most is how his marriage has lost its luster. In the opening scene, Pete and Debbie are having sex in the shower, but Debbie stops it once Pete admits he took Viagra beforehand. She's furious that her husband needs a pill for sexual performance, and the obvious subtext is the drug is yet another reminder she's past her youth.

 

接下来的两个小时里，他们之间充满了不同程度的敌意，皮特（Pete）和黛比（Debbie）为他们的不幸和年纪而悲叹，不论是体检，还是闷闷不乐多于活泼可爱的女儿们（两人都由阿帕图真正的女儿扮演）。矛盾积累的结果是幽闭恐惧症，即使是在应对烦人的岳父母或是失败的生意的时候，阿帕图（Apatow）也从没让我们忽视皮特（Pete）和黛比（Debbie） 日益尖锐的矛盾。他们抱怨的唯一借口就是：“当我背负着责任的时候，我不能做我自己想做的事情。”还不完全清楚这两个角色是不是注定要如此不讨喜。无论如 何，他们的自我折磨逐渐破坏了影片标题所预示的普遍意义。配角和次要人物们提供了一个短暂的缓冲，而（描写）他们的主要目的是反映皮特（Pete）和黛比（Debbie）之间的问题反馈在他们身上。

与《四十不惑》完全不同，《怪胎与书呆》是阿帕图所有表现方式中最好的作品。1999年首播以来，这部十八集的电视剧能够风靡至今，是因为阿帕图（音译Apatow）、保罗·费格（音译Paul Feig）还有杰克·卡斯丹（音译Jake Kasdan），赋予了剧中年轻的人物角色一些反抗的东西，并且最关键的是，一种不太可能的尊严感。所以，当14岁的山姆·威尔（音译Sam Weir）（约翰·弗朗西斯·达利（John Francis Daley）饰）厌倦了被欺负的时候，他采取了实际的方式来解决问题：勇敢地和支持他的书呆同伴们站在了一起。当山姆的姐姐琳赛（音译Lindsay）（琳达·卡德里尼（音译Linda Cardellini）饰）强迫她的朋友承认她曾帮助他在考试中作弊时，她给自己长了面子，而尖锐讽刺的回报，却不是我们期望看到的。尽管大多数青少年表面上看起来没什么责任感，又比成年人容易情绪激动，但一集接一集，阿帕图剧中的年轻角色们从来都没有依靠《四十不惑》中的特色表演方式。

阿帕图（Apatow）的长篇处女作《四十岁老处男》做出如此大的改变，其部分原因是阿帕图（Apatow）的剧本中对待性的方式，性不只是作为一个搞笑的包袱，尽管里面有大量的噱头（关于妓女、色情描写和不大可能的恋物癖）。阿帕图（Apatow）恰到好处地把性描绘成爱情的必要部分，一个角色（也是拉德（音译Rudd）的扮演者）补充道：“（爱情）当然是恐怖的。它痛苦又折磨人。”它只是一个小线索，主要是为了搞笑，而背后的真相是，这一元素使电影更加打动观众。

For the next two hours and with varying degrees of hostility, Pete and Debbie lament their unhappiness and the indignities of their age, whether it's a medical exam or daughters who are more sullen than cute (both are played by Apatow's real-life daughters). The cumulative result is claustrophobic; even when dealing with pesky in-laws or failing businesses, Apatow never quite lets us out of Pete and Debbie's increasingly shrill head-space. The only excuse for their whining is, "I can't do what I want when I have responsibility," and it's not entirely clear whether these two are meant to be so unlikable. Either way, their self-involvement undermines the universality promised by the film's title. Cameos and secondary characters offer a brief reprieve, yet their primary purpose is to reflect Pete and Debbie's problems back at them.

This Is 40 is a far cry from Freaks and Geeks, Apatow's best work in any medium. Premiering in 1999, the show's 18 episodes hold up today because Apatow, working with Paul Feig and Jake Kasdan, gave their young characters something to rebel against and, crucially, an unlikely sense of dignity. So when 14-year-old Sam Weir (John Francis Daley) is sick of his bully, he solves the problem in a matter-of-fact way: by having a brave last stand with his geek comrades at his side. When Sam's older sister Lindsay (Linda Cardellini) forces her friend to admit she helped him cheat on a test, she's developing her sense of decency, and the poignant, ironic payoff is not exactly what we would expect. Episode to episode, Apatow's young characters never resorted to the histrionics that define This Is 40, even though most teenagers are ostensibly less responsible and more emotional than adults.

Part of what made Apatow's feature-length debut with The 40 Year Old Virgin so revolutionary was the way Apatow's script treated sex as more than just a punch line, although there are plenty of gags about prostitutes, pornography, and unlikely fetishes. Apatow correctly portrayed sex as a necessary part of love, and one character (also played Rudd) added, "Of course [love is] horrible. It's suffering and it's pain." It was a small line, mostly played for laughs, yet the truth behind it is what made the film such an audience hit.

阿帕图（Apatow）似乎认识到随着我们年龄的增长，生活只会变得更加棘手，对我们的要求更加苛刻。而《四十不惑》中的人物们宁可讲述一个低劣的笑话，而不是去解决问题。

    在《四十不惑》最好的场景中，阿帕图（Apatow）再一次向大家暗示了这种复杂情况。抛开了他们的责任，皮特（Pete）和黛比（Debbie） 在周末的销魂**之后，笑谈各自谋杀对方的幻想。这一刻出奇地温柔：他们能够承认这些事情，这就是他们牢固婚姻的有力证明。任何处于长期关系中的人都知 道，有时候你和你的伴侣只是太亲近了。更有趣的是，像这样复杂的洞察力本可以给《四十不惑》带来更丰富的描写（针对家庭生活中的困境）。而阿帕图（Apatow）却只给我们带来了太多这样的场景：皮特（Pete）和黛比（Debbie）辱骂孩子们和父母们。

阿帕图（Apatow） 似乎认识到随着我们年龄的增长，生活只会变得更加棘手，对我们的要求更加苛刻。一笔还晚了的抵押贷款、一桩失败的生意、或者是一段不幸的婚姻，这些比校园 里横行的坏小子们更可怕。而《四十不惑》中的人物们宁可讲述一个低劣的笑话，而不是去解决问题。瘾君子们和高中生们可以用一场电影的时间来逃脱这种不成熟 带来的后果——并且在过去，阿帕图（Apatow）作品中的角色们甚至找到了克服这种不成熟的方法。在这部电影中，他们却没有（那样做），结果是单调乏味的，大多数年轻人都害怕他们的中年生活会变成那样。

In This Is 40's best scene, Apatow again hints at this complexity. After Pete and Debbie have goofy sex during a weekend away from their responsibilities, they joke about their respective murder fantasies for each other. The moment is weirdly tender: That they can admit these things is a testament to their strong marriage, and anyone who's been long-term relationship knows there are moments where you've simply had too much of your partner. More funny, complicated insight like this could have made This Is 40 a richer portrayal of the trappings of family life. Instead, Apatow gives us one too many scenes where Pete and Debbie verbally abuse parents and children.

 

Apatow seems to recognize that life only gets trickier and more demanding as we age. The school bully is not as frightening as a late mortgage payment, a failing business, or a tough marriage. But This Is 40's characters would rather crack a mean joke than solve their problems. Stoners and high school kids can spend a film getting away with that kind of immaturity—and in the past, Apatow's characters even found ways to rise above that immaturity. Here, they don't, and the result is as tedious as most young people fear middle age to be.

Apatow的最新作品福彩3D《 This Is 40》完成了从青年到中年的过渡。他的主要角色是一对已婚夫妇，北京快3肩负着更多的责任-其中包括经济义务和家庭生活主管。但是这次有些事情不起作用了。电影的负责人对自己的幸福着迷，这是阿帕托的角上海快3色从未有过的。结果是，电影中心的两个人比Apatow以前的漫无目的的扔石头的人和庸俗的不合时宜的人更可怜，更不易观看。