Be Reel Blog - The 40-Year-Old Virgin

While scrolling the Netflix's catalog of movies and shows, The 40-Year-Old Virgin caught my attention. With Steve Carell as the main character and a great supporting cast, I knew it was going to be a great movie, and I was right. Spoiler alert ahead by the way for anybody who has not seen this movie yet. This movie, directed by Judd Apatow in 2005, is about the awkward, geeky Andy Stitzer (Steve Carell) who collects action figures and lives a very bland life trying to finally lose his virginity with the help of his coworkers David (Paul Rudd), Jay (Romany Malco), and Cal (Seth Rogan). Andy's coworkers try everything to help him with his sex life. David gives him a big box full of pornography to help him get more comfortable with sex, the guys take Andy to speed dating to practice talking to girls, they set Andy up with a prostitute to try and get it over with but the prostitute turns out to be a transvestite which Andy did not like in even the slightest amount, and they let him hang out with them to socialize more and meet girls. In the store Andy meets a girl named Trish (Catherine Keener) who gives him her number and they eventually go out on a date. Andy still is not comfortable with sex yet by this time and the two agree to not have sex until they have gone on 20 dates, unbeknownst to Trish that Andy is still a virgin and is nervous about having sex. Once the 20th date comes to a close, Trish is ready to have sex but Andy is still very hesitant and gets flustered. He storms off to a nightclub and gets wasted after they get into a big fight about why he does not want to do it after all this time and goes off with a girl named Beth (Elizabeth Banks) from the club to have sex. After her daughter tells her to make up with him, Trish leaves her house to find him to apologize. While Beth is warming up for Andy, he gets scared of her and goes home on the advice of his coworkers who followed him to Beth's house. Andy goes home to find that Trish found all of David's pornography and starts to think Andy's trying to kill her, so she runs off with him frantically biking after her. After he finally catches up to her and crashing through a double sided billboard, he finally reveals to her that he is a virgin and was nervous about having sex for the first time. She understands and they kiss in the middle of the street. Some time later the two get married and finally Andy loses his virginity.

The decisions this movie makes really make the film as good as it can be. The costumes on all the characters work very well in showing how each character is personality-wise. Andy is nerdy and socially awkward, and his more formal costume conveyed that personality to perfection. David, Jay and Cal's casual clothing shows that they are more outgoing and laid-back. The character's work uniforms tells the audience what their job is in the store, for example the uniform of gray shirt with no tie shows that a character is a stock supervisor while the blue shirt uniform with a tie shows that a character works on the sales floor. The acting further supports each character's personality, as Carell acts childish and antisocial for most of the movie which tells the audience that he does not like to go out much and that he would rather spend his time by himself while Rudd, Malco, and Rogan act confident in their endeavors, showing that they have experience in what they do and that they like to go out and live life to the fullest. The set designs really send home what a character's personality is like. Andy's place has action figures all over the place, affirming the fact that he is geeky. Although we do not really see where any of Andy's coworker's live, the places that they go like the nightclubs and speed dating places set in stone that they like to meet girls and try to mingle. Overall, I give this movie a Good Good rating and I highly recommend anybody who likes Steve Carell's work to check it out.