The 40 Year Old Virgin

I missed out on this film during its cinema release as I figured it to be yet another sex comedy with gross-out gags. While the film does contain a little of this, it is way more character based and the humour comes from more absurd situations than disgusting ones. Never judge a book by its cover, eh?

Andy Stitzer (Steve Carrell) is a 40-year-old virgin. His life is made up of working in the returns department of an electronics store, collecting toys of movie characters and watching reality TV with his OAP neighbours. The touch of a woman is foreign to him and he is yet to be educated in their mysterious ways. Though he does have the bonus of not having to put up with their moaning, tantrums and bitching, "because they can!" When his secret is wrenched out of him, his work buddies make it their mission to help him pop his cherry and think of a zillion, wacky, hair-brained schemes.

But Andy is interested in Trish (Catherine Keener), the woman from the store across the road. Only he's really intimidated and arranges a weird no-sex policy with her that originally makes her relax at not having to live up to expectations, but eventually makes her want to explode. Can he keep his secret from her, too, and perform the dirty deed with the apparent expertise of your average porn stud?

I'm so cynical of all these "extended cuts" that are appearing on DVDs at the moment. Most are completely unnecessary and give us only a couple more minutes of pointlessness, but The 40 Year Old Virgin gives us a staggering 17 extra minutes and bulks up the film's running time to an incredible 133 minutes. For such a thin premise, the film gets an impressive amount of mileage and you never really feel like it's dragging.

With decent characters and a story that just breezes along, without being superficial, the best long movies seem like very short ones. The 40 Year Old Virgin is definitely one of those. And I promise you this is not a "rom-com," nor a "sex-com". Despite some crude humour here and there, this is more of a light-hearted "drama-com".

Carrell proves he's as versatile as Jim Carrey and Robin Williams. He's funny and sympathetic, without being pathetic. You hear me Will Ferrell? You too Adam Sandler!

Three stars are for the movie, but it gets an extra bonus half-star for including a wonderfully, wonderfully top heavy actress, as Trish's daughter. Man, with women this big-boobed you just know there is a God ("Steady Gator" - Ed).