The 40-Year-Old Virgin

The 40 Year-Old Virgin
The 40 Year-Old Virgin theatrical poster
Directed by	Judd Apatow
Written by	Judd Apatow Steve Carell
Produced by	Holly Bario Steve Carell Mary Parent Jon Poll
Starring	Steve Carell Catherine Keener Paul Rudd Romany Malco Seth Rogen Kat Dennings Jane Lynch Leslie Mann Jonah Hill withChelsea Smith and Wyatt Smith as boy at wedding
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	2005-08-19
Running time	Theatrical: 116 min. Unrated: 133 min.
Language	English
Budget	$26,000,000

The 40 Year-Old Virgin is a 2005 American comedy film, written by Judd Apatow and co-written by Steve Carell, though it featured a great deal of improvised dialogue. It also stars Catherine Keener, Romany Malco, Seth Rogen (who was also the co-producer) and Paul Rudd, as well as featuring Leslie Mann (Apatow's wife) and Nancy Walls (Carell's wife) in small roles.

The film received its general U.S. theatrical release on 19 August, 2005 and was released on region 1 DVD on 13 December 2005.

Plot

Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) is the 40 year old virgin of the title. While a very pleasant and well-meaning guy with an attractive appearance and physique, he is something of a stereotypical nerd, as he lives alone, collects action figures, enjoys video games, framed a poster of eighties rock band Asia, and his social life seems to consist of watching Survivor with his elderly neighbors. And, of course, he has never had sex.

Andy works in the stockroom at an electronics store called SmartTech. His co-workers include the affable David (Paul Rudd), who is tormented by memories of his old girlfriend Amy (Mindy Kaling); the burly Cal (Seth Rogen), a self-proclaimed novelist and stoner; and Jay (Romany Malco), who is something of a ladies' man with the mannerisms of a gangster. One night, these three ask Andy to play poker with them (purely for lack of anyone else to invite). While swapping sex stories during the game, they quickly figure out that Andy is still a virgin, and resolve to help him lose his virginity.

Andy is at first reluctant to go along with them, but after a heartfelt talk with David, he agrees to give it a try. The gang’s efforts prove to be unsuccessful: they take Andy to a bar, where Jay advises him to hit on drunk women, but this backfires when the girl Andy leaves with drives the two of them home drunk and then throws up on him; Jay recommends that Andy get his chest waxed, but Andy finds it so painful that he leaves halfway through; David gives Andy his "big box of porn" to help him “loosen up” sexually, but to no avail; they all go to a speed dating lunch, with no success. Later, Cal tells Andy how to talk to women properly, which surprisingly results in a girl named Beth (Elizabeth Banks) actually taking a liking to him. As he begins to bond with his co-workers, Andy starts to open up and true friendships begin to form.

Eventually, after Jay hires Andy a prostitute who turns out to be a transvestite, Andy tells them that he is taking matters into his own hands, and he lands a date with Trish Piedmont (Catherine Keener), a mother of three who works in a store across the street from SmartTech. Their first date goes well, and they almost end up having sex, but Andy can’t figure out how to use a condom, and then they are interrupted by Trish’s teenage daughter Marla (Kat Dennings) outraged at the fact that her mother is allowed to have sex, yet she isn't. On their next date, Andy decides to tell Trish he is a virgin, but just before he does so, she suggests that they postpone having sex for a while, an idea to which Andy enthusiastically agrees; they decide that they won’t have sex until their twentieth date. Meanwhile, David runs into his ex-girlfriend Amy, which prompts him to become unstable and eventually resort to celibacy, citing Andy as an inspiration. Jay’s girlfriend breaks up with him when she finds out he’s been cheating on her and sends him into a downward spiral when he explodes at an obnoxious customer. Andy comforts Jay who reveals his breakup with Jill and advises Andy that for a relationship to last, the sex has to be left out.

Andy's friends' problems sort themselves out, however, so they learn nothing. Jay's girlfriend realizes she is pregnant and takes him back; and Cal hires an attractive young woman to work in the stockroom in order to lure David out of celibacy.

Andy and Trish’s relationship is a strong one, with Trish even convincing Andy to sell his precious collectible action figures in order to raise enough money to open his own store someday. While at work, Andy is promoted to floor manager because of his surprising talents as a salesman. Things are going well until they finally reach the twentieth date, at which point Andy panics and they have a big argument which ends with him storming out. He turns up at a nightclub where Jay is celebrating his girlfriend’s pregnancy, and proceeds to get very drunk. He runs into Beth at the bar, and they leave for her apartment. Meanwhile, David finally relinquishes his celibacy and hooks up with Bernadette, and Trish’s daughter Marla convinces her to go and make up with Andy.

At Beth’s apartment, Andy sobers up and starts to have second thoughts. Then, his three friends arrive at the apartment to talk him out of it, so he leaves to make up with Trish. When Andy gets home, he finds Trish waiting for him; she has found David’s big box of porn, and now considers Andy to be some sort of sexual deviant, and leaves in disgust. Andy chases her car on his bike (to the music of Heat of the Moment by Asia), and gets involved in an accident which results in him being thrown through a two sided billboard truck and landing on the road in front of traffic. She rushes to his side in concern, and he finally confesses to her that he is a virgin. She realizes this is why he has been acting so strangely, and they tell each other that they love each other.

They end up getting married with everyone in attendance, and finally consummate their relationship on their wedding night. Andy finally loses his virginity with Trish in their hotel room. The film ends with an over-the-top Hair-style musical scene in which the cast of the film sing and dance to the song “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”.

Reception

Critical reception

The film received largely positive reviews: Rotten Tomatoes declared it the "Best Reviewed Comedy of 2005", with 84% of 160 critics giving it a "fresh" review.

Ebert & Roeper gave the film two thumbs up, Ebert saying "I was surprised by how funny, how sweet and how wise the movie really is" and "the more you think about it, the better The 40-Year-Old Virgin gets". . The pair offered minor criticisms, with Ebert describing "the way she (Catherine Keener as 'Trish') empathizes with [Andy]" as "almost too sweet to be funny" and Roeper thinking it was too long. Roeper later chose the film as the tenth best of 2005.

Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called the film a "charmingly bent comedy", noting that Carell conveys a "sheer likability" and a "range as an actor" that were "crucial to making this film work as well as it does."

In December 2005, the film was chosen by the American Film Institute as one of the ten best movies of the year, the only comedy film to be so recognized (though the comedy-drama The Squid and the Whale was also chosen). The film was also ranked #30 on Bravo's 100 Funniest Movies.

Box office

The film was a summer hit, and opened at #1 at the box office, grossing $21,422,815 on its opening weekend, and stayed #1 the following weekend. The film grossed a total of $109,449,237 on the domestic market, and $67,929,408 overseas, for a total of $177,378,645. The film was 25th in gross globally, and 19th in the U.S that year.

DVD release

An unrated version of the film was released on DVD. It features additional and extended scenes which add 17 minutes to the length of the film. Those scenes include:

• A heated argument between Jay (Romany Malco) and Mooj (Gerry Bednob) over a "poached" customer
• A poker scene with alternate dialogue
• A scene where Andy (Carell) sees sexually provocative photos on magazine covers at a newstand
• A flashback scene featuring a young Andy's struggle to remove a girl's bra
• A longer version of a scene at a bar where Andy picks up a drunk woman
• Andy fast-forwards through sex scenes featured in a pornographic film, then imagines its star (Stormy Daniels) talking to him, with clumsy sex talk in a voice that turns into his own
• Andy's boss Paula (Jane Lynch) tells another of her employees that she would have sex with Andy "in a New York minute"
• Mooj complains to floor manager Andy about the shifts he's been assigned, then talks to Andy about the upcoming end to his series of 20 sex-free dates with Trish (Catherine Keener)
• David sells a television set to a customer who enjoys the Michael McDonald DVD that David has long tired of. When the customer asks David if he can throw in the DVD should he buy the TV, David gamely replies "Even if you don't buy it, I'll throw in the DVD!"
• Andy and Beth (Elizabeth Banks) have a "Who's on First?"-like exchange featuring the word "butt"
• An extended argument between Jay and a customer (Kevin Hart) at Smartech

Commentary track

The unrated version included a feature-length commentary track featuring Apatow, Carell, Rudd and several other members of the cast. Atypically, the commentary was recorded before the film opened. The track is as explicit as the film's dialogue: at one point the commentary track producer sends in a note to Apatow asking for "less semen, more emotion" in their comments.

The commentary mentions the following:

• The film originated in a conversation between Apatow and Carell on the set of Anchorman. Apatow asked Carell if he had any ideas for a film of his own and Carell pitched a couple—the second pitch, which led to the film, came from an idea that dates back to Carell's The Second City days.
• The studio was worried that Andy looked like Jeffrey Dahmer, a comment that led to multiple improvised references to Andy's similarity to a serial killer.
• Adam McKay is credited with the idea of having Andy's buddies talk while they broke fluorescent tubes. This is not a recommended practice, as the broken fluorescent tubes expel toxic mercury vapor.
• To be sure they got the coverage they needed of the body waxing scene in one take, four cameras were used simultaneously.
• The production used over a million feet of film, a milestone reached on the last day of filming and recognized with free champagne by the company providing the film stock.
• According to Apatow the origin of "Boner Jams '03" (pornography compilation tape) came while Apatow was a writer on the 1994 film Heavyweights. Apatow stated while sitting around with the other actors after dinner actor David Bowe asked if they wanted to watch porn. Bowe played a compilation tape of porn which thus inspired Apatow to introduce it in the film.

The amount of improvised dialogue in the film was so significant that co-writer Apatow half-jokingly questioned the legitimacy of his writer's credit.

The commentary is not included on the R2 version of the DVD.

Trivia

• Steve Carell was filmed actually having his chest waxed. He was also presented with the option of trimming the hair before filming to lessen the pain, but declined in favour of authenticity. He further stated in an interview on Australia's Rove Live that the scene was unnecessarily painful because the waxers forgot to oil his nipples.
• The AHA withheld its "no animals were harmed..." disclaimer due to the accidental deaths of several tropical fish used in the film.
• According to Douglas Wolk, author of 'Reading Comics: How graphic novels work and what they mean', there is a longstanding comic book term FYOV (Forty-year-old virgins) used to describe people who only buy comic books for monetary value.
• Director Judd Apatow's wife, Leslie Mann plays Nicky, the drunk girl. Mann also plays in many of other films by Apatow.

External links

• The 40-Year-Old Virgin at IMDb
• Official site
• Screenplay in PDF format
• Hanna-Barbera Theatre 2
• Rotten Tomatoes Review