COMEDY; 1hr 45min
STARRING: Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Rashida Jones
Getting cool: from left, Segel and Rudd
What is it with Peter Klaven (Rudd)? He’s a happy chappie with a sweetheart fiancée (Jones as Zoe) and a firing Los Angeles real-estate career. So why does he have no friends? Could it be that he’s too nice — in a borderline-cringey, nerdlinger way? Yes and yes, but be that as it may, Peter needs a buddy to be his best man. And after a succession of terrible “man-dates,” along comes Sydney Fife (Forgetting Sarah Marshall ’s Segel), surely one of the coolest guys on the planet.
Peter and Sydney are chalk and cream cheese, black and lily white. But they’re a happy match all the same, with Segel ambling chummily through the laidback motions and a try-hard Rudd getting Peter where he lives. And everything is peachy-until Zoe starts to feel excluded. Directed and co-written by John Hamburg (Along Came Polly), I Love You, Man is a sparky, empathic package that balances loopy and insightful — sometimes in the same scene. So come for the easy laughs and stay for the simpatico characters. I’ll wager they are destined to grow on you.
