Funny People
Universal Pictures | Release Date: July 31, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
60
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
22
Mixed:
12
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
Funny People is a true brass ring effort, a reach for excellence that takes big risks. It's 146 minutes, with a story that's more European in feeling than American. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's the work of a major talent. Apatow scores by crafting the film equivalent of a stand-up routine that encompasses the joy, pain, anger, loneliness and aching doubt that go into making an audience laugh. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Funny People nimbly intersperses humor and reflection. It is a rumination on mortality, fame and life choices, punctuated with Apatow's trademark raunchy humor. Read full review
88
New York PostKyle Smith
Turns out to be one of the most absorbing films of the year. Plus it has lots of wiener jokes. Read full review
88
TV Guide MagazinePerry Seibert
The result is a raucously funny and poignant love letter to standup comics. Read full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The thing about Funny People is that it's a real movie. That means carefully written dialogue and carefully placed supporting performances -- and it's ABOUT SOMETHING. Read full review
80
Washington PostAnn Hornaday
Even the most forced, artificial episodes in Funny People ring oddly true, because George's life -- the obscene wealth, the loneliness, the fame -- is odd. Perhaps not since "Sunset Boulevard" have the wages and eccentricities of celebrity been depicted with such tough, almost perverse honesty. Read full review
80
EmpireMark Dinning
An absolute treat. In spite of its disappointing climax, this is Apatow’s smartest, rudest and -- yes -- funniest film yet. Read full review
80
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Apatow’s richest, most complicated movie yet--a summing up of his feelings about comedy and its relation to the rest of existence. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe Williams
The sharpest parts of the movie hack through the Hollywood jungle with an insider's certitude. But Apatow is so grounded in the comedy circuit that he can't quite capture the emotional wavelength of the life-and-death drama. Read full review
75
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
The movie's power sneaks up on you, reminiscent of something screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond once famously described as "the Billy Wilder touch": A combination of the sweet and the sour, because even funny people, like you and I, aren't always being funny. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Funny People turns out to be fairly predictable, and not so rough. In a thoroughly satisfying way. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
It's refreshingly unformulaic, but a rambling mess. It's also tremendously funny. Read full review
70
Film ThreatMatthew Sorrento
Perhaps Simmons is the man Apatow fears he will become. If so, with Sandler's help the filmmaker's fashioned a solid work of self reflection. There's plenty to love and laugh along with here. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderCliff Doerksen
Messy but engaging comedy. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Apatow is on the right track. In moving his adolescent male comedies into more adult realms, the humor sharpens and characters deepen. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleKimberley Jones
Funny People – sensitive, shaggy, a little bit draggy – is as much about the maturation of Ira as a performer and George as a man as it is about Apatow’s maturation as an artist. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Not quite funny enough, or serious enough, falls into the muddle middle. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
50 percent good and 50 percent close. Read full review
63
PremiereStaff (Not credited)
The drama aspect is necessary to the story, but it just drags on too long. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
The movie wears thin its welcome a couple of reels before Apatow has finished telling his story. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
It's got a smattering of hearty laughs and a career-high performance from Sandler. Read full review
60
SlateDana Stevens
Apatow answers to no one. His worst enemy as a director is his unwillingness to linger in the dark places from which his comedy springs. Read full review
60
VarietyTodd McCarthy
Amusing and engaging yet lacking in snap and cohesion, this insider's look at the world of standup comics in contempo Los Angeles rings true in its view of the variously warped, stunted and narrow lives of its mostly male denizens. Read full review
60
Village VoiceScott Foundas
There's so much that's so disarmingly good and sharp about Funny People that you wish the whole movie weren't so much of a shambles. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
You find yourself wishing that Apatow had managed a script that was either really funny or about real people instead of this half-baked pseudo-memoir that's neither. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Michael Posner
Apatow wants to be taken seriously. Funny People is the attempt to raise his game a notch – and it fails. Read full review
50
TimeRichard Corliss
That heart comes bursting out of Funny People, Apatow's intermittently engaging, 2 hr. 26 min. essay in schizo-cinemaphrenia. Read full review
50
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Sandler isn't afraid of plumbing his dark side, but Apatow fails him: Scenes of George's self-pity drag on too long, and as the character loses stature, Sandler recedes from his own vehicle. Rogen doesn't fill the vacuum. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy Burr
What’s best about Funny People, actually, is Sandler, who takes the weird, resentful anger that has always coursed beneath his comedy and puts it right on the surface. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The message that comes across is: We're all screwed, and then we die. Ba-DUM. Read full review
40
The New York TimesManohla Dargis
There’s something irritatingly self-satisfied about Funny People, which explains why, though it glances on the perils of fame, it mostly affirms its pleasures. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesBetsy Sharkey
Any sort of new insight into comedy's darker themes, to say nothing of life's, eludes Funny People. Instead Sandler and Rogen and the rest are left to wander aimlessly, with tedious comedy gigs, an even more tedious faux sitcom and relatively vapid relationships masquerading as a plot. Read full review
40
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Funny People is an ambitious, misshapen picture that feels like two, maybe even three, separate movies uncomfortably jammed into one. Read full review
30
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Gets old fast. Read full review
30
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
The denizens of Judd Apatow’s Funny People have been pulled every which way to fit a misshapen concept, yet they remain painfully unfunny, and consistently off-putting. Read full review
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