The 40 Year Old Virgin

I seem to have contracted Dr. Worm’s illness of using food analogies, but watching The 40 Year Old Virgin is like eating a whole ton of Brussels sprouts. They taste horrendously terrible, and each bite is utter torture, but they’re filled with nutrients, vitamins and minerals, good stuff that your body needs, especially since you just got off that bender of Twinkies and peanut butter cups. The 40 Year Old Virgin has a really good message (though it’s buried), and generally promotes good feelings when it’s over. It’s the “before it’s over” period that’s the problem, and it’s a freakin’ huge problem.

I saw the unrated version, and I think that’s the only version available on DVD. So there was stuff in it that might have been taken out for its theater runs. If there was, I couldn’t actually tell except for in one part. Let me just say that this is the most vulgar, filthy, disgusting, base, and retch-inducing movie I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of movies. At the same time, I kinda fell in love with it.

I should rephrase that: I fell in love with the main character. Actually, I should rephrase that, too, since the main character’s a man, and a fictional one at that. Andy Stitzer, played by the hilarious and endearing Steve Carell, is a virgin, meaning that he has never had sex. This is partly from a lack of opportunities, partly from bad luck, and partly from something that separates him from almost every other man on the planet: a slight lack of interest in sex. Don’t get me wrong, he definitely sees it as something he would like to do; it’s just not a high priority in his life, especially at this point. After all, he is 40 years old, and it doesn’t seem all that important anymore.

For the first hour of the movie, he is the only endearing character in the movie. The three guys he works with in a Circuit City/Best Buy type of store, who in desperation invite him as the fifth guy in a poker game, are ASSHOLES!!! Forgive me for my swearing, Stormy Pinkness, but there was no other word to describe their utter lack of any redeeming qualities whatsoever. When it is revealed (through gross but hilarious means) that he is a virgin, the three guys do everything in their power to end his dry spell. They teach him all their techniques, some of which are not only wrong-headed but reprehensible, and give him ridiculously bad advice. He tries it all out, much to the audience’s chagrin, with varying results. Why chagrin? Because we like Andy, and don’t want to see anything bad happen to him. Thankfully, he’s smart enough to let everything roll off him after a while.

His girlfriend, Trish, is great, too. Played with scenery-chewing expertise by Catherine Keener, she’s the perfect yin to Andy’s yang. If only his “friends” would stop interfering! The movie would be a lot shorter and a great deal less interesting if they would just shut up and leave him alone, but Andy is so endearing and we care about him so much that we’re willing to make that sacrifice. Also, Trish has the exact right reaction to finding out that Andy’s a virgin.

The message of the movie, amazingly, and going against everything that we as secular Americans are taught, is that virginity is something to cherish, to hold on to, and is not to be given away lightly. When you do finally give it away, you should make sure that the person to which you are giving it away truly deserves it, as Trish does for Andy. You can probably guess that by the end of the movie Andy is not a virgin anymore, so I’m not giving anything away. It’s very important to note that Andy has sex for the first time AFTER he gets married, because that says something very valuable about marriage as well. It suggests that like sex, the person you marry should truly deserve it as well, and it’s not something to be done lightly.

Iconic lines:
“Wanna know how I know you’re gay? Because you like Coldplay.”
“Andy, for the last time, I don’t want your big box of porn!”
“He’s performing a public colonoscopy. Isn’t that sweet.”

22 Rating: 0

Before now, I didn’t think I could ever give a movie 0, since 0 represents, for me, complete apathy, lack of feeling. Every movie generates some feeling in me, no matter how slight. Now I see another purpose for 0, and that is when a movie balances out. I want to give The 40 Year Old Virgin a 15 for its message and skill with character, but I also want to give it a -15 for it’s unbelievable vulgarity. So I guess it balances out.

Particle Man