The 40 Year-Old Virgin

When 40-year-old Andy (Carell) admits he's never done the deed, his work buddies (Rudd, Malco, Seth Rogen) resolve to help him lose his cherry at the first available opportunity. But Andy is setting his sights higher than sex for its own sake: Andy is falling in love with divorced mother-of-three Trish (Keener) and is prepared to do whatever it takes to woo her - even if that means agreeing to Trish's suggestion that they abstain from sex for at least 20 dates. The 40-Year-Old Virgin isn't the kind of crude, gross-out romantic comedy you might expect from its unfortunate title, although the humour is of the broad, slapstick variety and features plenty of funny frat-boy gags. Andy - inevitably, perhaps - is presented as a figure of fun in the initial stages. He's caricatured as a squeaky-clean adolescent male: he cycles a bike, obsessively collects action figures, and his apartment is something of a shrine to computer games, sci-fi posters and shiny gadgets. But when his buddies rally round to help Andy out of his plight, and Keener belatedly appears on the scene, the movie shifts into a more sympathetic take on Andy's life and choices. "I respect women so much I stay away from them," he declares; later, the theme tune to The Greatest American Hero plays over a montage of Andy and Trish on a series of dates. Virginity is something to be cherished, the movie seems to be saying, but director Judd Apatow and co-writer Carell want to applaud Andy's choices while simultaneously mocking his predicament. "He's a really nice guy," one of his work buddies says, summing up Andy's blend of gauche naivety and creepy intensity, "but I'm pretty sure he's a serial murderer." The best bits here come from the background trio of Rudd, Malco and Rogen; for all Carell and Keener's hard work, a 40-year-old virgin is something to be pitied rather than empathised with.