Mid-life crisis | 14 February 2013

This is 40. Or perhaps I should say, is this 40? I haven’t yet reached that rounded age myself, so don’t have much of a frame of reference. But a quick spin around Wikipedia reveals that the film’s writer-director Judd Apatow (45) and its two stars, Leslie Mann (40) and Paul Rudd (43), all have the requisite number of years on them. They must know what they’re talking about, mustn’t they?

Mann and Rudd play Debbie and Pete, a married couple who first appeared in one of the best comedies of the last decade, Apatow’s Knocked Up (2007). And their relationship is summed up by the film’s poster: Pete squats on the toilet, iPad in hand, while Debbie looks on askance through the bathroom mirror. They’re so close to each other that they can practically feel the bowel movements, but perhaps too close for things such as passion, mystery and excitement.