Down to earth, relatable and just plain funny. The 40 Year Old Virgin is a great comedy that is genuinely funny. The movie touches on not just the struggle of the virgin but other relationship issues as well that make the film relatable. Its fun to watch Andy slowly grow into a confident man who is able to find true love. The entire cast is great, especially the supporting friends of Andy, as always Paul Rudd and Seth Rogen do not disappoint!

If you liked "Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" you will love this movie. In fact, it rejoins a couple of the supporting cast of that film, starring Steve Carrell, who played "Brick" who, in my opinion, stole that show with his clueless stares and inane ramblings. In this film, Andy, the 40-year-old virgin, gets a lot of unwanted help from his male coworkers, who are all so completely dysfunctional that they really don't have any business trying to repair anyone else's private life. The fact that Andy also still rides a bicycle and is chided by his coworkers for that, too, just seems to emphasize that modern society has turned virginity into a stigma similar to not being able to pass a driving test.

Instead of wanting to lose his virginity, though, what Andy really wants is a relationship with the nice woman running a store across the street from where he works. His virginity is just a byproduct of him not finding a good relationship with a woman yet. The resulting story is actually a rather sweet romance buried underneath all of the Man Show style humor. It carries a rare message in modern film - that chastity before marriage is not a bad thing, and that everybody is running on their own schedule.

It may feel overlong, sketchy, and familiar; but all this actually because of one single flaw, which is that the movie completely delivered itself to its message. Don't get me wrong, the message of the movie is one of its best merits (it's well-conveyed, and it makes the movie stand out from the rest of raunchy comedies). But when the plot ends up being completely driven by the moral of the story, you know that there is something wrong here. A lot of monotonous, stretched story-lines, and repetitive jokes made the movie feels as if it has overstayed its welcome. And I kept always wondering why a movie that felt so fresh and genuine, and also has a lot to say (considering its remaining running time and the almost flawless, extremely hilarious and intriguing first act and half of the second). I think I found the answer as the third act kicked off, which is to keep stretching the movie as much as it could until it reach the denouement, and hence delivers its message at the end. It ends up being pretty much a run-of-the-mill rom-com.

However, The 40-Year-Old Virgin completely deserves the cult status it has achieved. First and foremost, Judd Apatow pulled off a something seemingly impossible: a combination of a crude, gross-out comedy and a heartfelt, tender romantic comedy. While these two sub-genres didn't mix very well with each other, glimpses of each of both have managed to be consistent throughout the entire movie. That's largely due to the likable and unbelievably relatable protagonist, Andy, brought to life by an outstanding, star-making performance by Steve Carell, who revealed his massive talent, showing an impressive range he would latter become famous for.

All the secondary characters here have a reasonable depth that prove how this movie is really different from your typical gross-out comedy. They may be stereotypical after all, but the witty rude humor that came from them added an extra, and maybe interestingly contradictory, layer to all of them. I think all the performances are great, but Paul Rudd really stole the show.

Also the movie features a young Jonah Hill in a very funny cameo. I mean, what more could you ask for?

(7.5/10)