The 40-Year-Old Virgin

The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Promotional poster
Directed by	Judd Apatow
Written by	Judd Apatow Steve Carell
Produced by	Judd Apatow Shauna Robertson Clayton Townsend Seth Rogen Steve Carell
Starring	Steve Carell Catherine Keener Paul Rudd Romany Malco
Edited by	Brent White
Music by	Lyle Workman
Production company	The Apatow Company
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	August 19, 2005
Running time	Theatrical cut: 116 min. Unrated cut: 133 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$26,000,000
Box office	$177,378,645

The 40-Year-Old Virgin is a Template:Fy comedy film written and directed by Judd Apatow and co-written by the film's lead star, Steve Carell, though the film itself features 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 Leslie Mann (Apatow's wife) and Nancy Walls (Carell's wife) in small roles.

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

Plot

Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) is the eponymous 40-year-old virgin. A very well-meaning, highly neurotic, somewhat stereotypical nerd, Andy 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.

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 novelist and stoner; and Jay (Romany Malco), a self-styled ladies' man. When a friend drops out of a poker game, they reluctantly invite the withdrawn Andy to join them. Andy turns out to be surprisingly good at poker due to his free-time of playing the game online. When conversation turns to past sexual exploits, Andy desperately makes up a story, giving himself away when he describes the feel of a woman's breasts as "like bags of sand". When the others realize Andy is still a virgin, they 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, partly because all three men give Andy different and sometimes contradictory advice. 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, wrecks the car, and vomits on him. Jay recommends that Andy get his chest waxed, but Andy finds it so painful that he leaves halfway through. (Steve Carell actually had his chest hair removed during the scene, and stated in an interview on Australia's Rove Live that the scene was unnecessarily painful because the waxers forgot to oil his nipples). David gives Andy his "big box of porn" to help him "loosen up" sexually, but to no avail. They later go to a speed dating lunch, with no success, and at which David encounters ex-girlfriend Amy, sending him into a downward spiral of depression. Later, Cal advises Andy to be questioning when talking to women, (which makes Andy seem mysterious) and results in Beth (Elizabeth Banks), a bookstore clerk, taking a liking to Andy. Andy starts to open up, and as true friendships begin to form with his co-workers, Andy impresses his boss, Paula (Jane Lynch), with his salesmanship and she promotes him to floor manager.

Eventually, Jay hires Andy a prostitute who turns out to be a transvestite. The reason for Jay doing this is explained previously when he says that Andy must practice on other girls. He refers to these girls as hoodrats. 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. It is later revealed that one of Trish's kids also has a kid, making Trish a "hot grandma" according to Cal. Andy and Trish's first date goes well, and they almost end up having sex, but before Trish discovers that Andy does not know how to use a condom, 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, to which Andy enthusiastically agrees; they decide they won’t have sex until their twentieth date. Meanwhile, David's brush with Amy prompts him to become unstable and eventually resort to celibacy, citing Andy as an inspiration, while Jay’s girlfriend breaks up with him when she finds out he’s been cheating on her, leading him to an argument with an obnoxious customer. Andy comforts Jay after he reveals his breakup with Jill and advises to Andy that sex can ruin a relationship.

Afterward, Jay's ex-girlfriend realizes she is pregnant and takes him back, and Cal hires an attractive young woman named Bernadette to work in the stockroom in order to lure David out of celibacy.

Andy and Trish’s relationship is a strong one, with Trish suggesting Andy sell his precious collectible action figures in order to raise enough money to open his own store. Things are going well until Andy and Trish finally reach the twentieth date, at which point Andy panics and an argument ensues in which Andy accuses Trish of making him sell his action figures when he didn't want to. He storms out of her home, and turns up at a nightclub where Jay is celebrating his girlfriend’s pregnancy, and proceeds to get very drunk. Andy 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 (who found out that Andy is a virgin) convinces her to go and make up with Andy.

At Beth’s apartment, Andy sobers up and starts to have second thoughts. His three friends arrive at the apartment to talk him out of it, so he leaves with them to make up with Trish (although Cal stays behind to hook up with Beth). When Andy gets home, he finds Trish waiting for him; she has found the big box of porn given to him by David and a plastic vagina (obtained from a family planning clinic), and now considers Andy to be some sort of sexual deviant, and leaves in alarm and 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 (used as a sight gag near the beginning of the movie), 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 kiss.

They end up getting married with everyone in attendance, with a sidelong mention of Andy's action figures having sold for approximately half a million dollars, 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 musical scene in which the cast of the film sing and dance to the song “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In.”

Cast

• Steve Carell as Andy Stitzer
• Catherine Keener as Trish Piedmont
• Paul Rudd as David
• Romany Malco as Jay
• Seth Rogen as Cal
• Elizabeth Banks as Beth
• Leslie Mann as Nicky
• Jane Lynch as Paula
• Gerry Bednob as Mooj
• Shelley Malil as Haziz
• Kat Dennings as Marla Piedmont
• Jonah Hill as eBay Customer
• Marika Dominczyk as Bernadette
• Mindy Kaling as Amy
• Elizabeth DeCicco as Bar Girl
• Wayne Federman as SmartTech Customer
• Mo Collins as Gina ('Gyna')
• Steve Bannos as Father at Restaurant
• Kevin Hart as SmartTech Customer
• Nancy Walls as Health Clinic Counselor
• David Koechner as Safe Sex Group Dad
• Cedric Yarbrough as Safe Sex Group Dad

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 and Roeper gave the film a "two thumbs up" rating. Roger Ebert said, "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 Richard Roeper saying that the film was too long. Roeper later chose the film as the tenth best of 2005.

Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the movie an A-, saying that Carell "plays him [Andy] in the funniest and most surprising way possible: as a credible human being."

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 was "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.

The AHA withheld its "no animals were harmed..." disclaimer due to the accidental deaths of several tropical fish used in the film.

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. The scenes were cut out in order to avoid an NC-17 rating.

Unrated scenes

• A heated argument between Jay and Mooj over a "poached" customer
• A poker scene with alternate dialogue
• A scene where Andy sees sexually provocative photos on magazine covers at a newsstand (one showing Katherine Heigl)
• 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 tells Cal 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 "You don't get the set, I'll throw in the DVD!"
• Andy and Beth have a "Who's on First?"-like exchange featuring the word "butt"
• An extended argument between Jay and a customer (Kevin Hart) at SmartTech
• Extended dance scene at the end of the movie

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. Carell revealed on American Top 40 that the actress who portrayed the waxer lied about having waxing experience in her résumé.
• 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. Using the conversion of 90 feet of film per minute, this means that the shooting ratio for the film is an impressive 96:1 for the theatrical (84:1 for the unrated version).
• 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, but is included on the HD-DVD release.

External links

• Official website
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin at IMDb
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin at AllMovie
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin at Box Office Mojo
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin at Rotten Tomatoes
• Screenplay at The Daily Script