Universal Wanted To Cut ‘Funny People’ By 30 Minutes?

Sharon Waxman’s at it again, but this time it seems a bit more plausible. You’ll remember she reported that The Weinstein Company wanted to trim 40 minutes of “Inglourious Basterds,” and that report turned out to be totally false (even though, “bloggers” seemed to catch the brunt of that error for some reason).

Now she’s saying (via Jeff Wells) Universal, some of the head’s of which are evidently in trouble, wanted to cut 30 minutes of the picture, which seems understandable because a) Universal is not having a great summer, “Bruno,” way underperformed as did “Public Enemies,” even if it does have legs and b) this film is too long at 2 hours and 26 minutes.

Because of the exorbitant length, the film is apparently tracking at a $20 million opening weekend which is probably too small for the studio’s liking, but here’s the thing which we’ve briefly mentioned in our brief, topline “thoughts review” of the Judd Apatow film: “Funny People” is lengthy, but not exhausting.

Much like Tarantino’s ‘Basterds’ cutting the picture 30 minutes deep would have decimated it’s emotionally rich tone.

“Funny People” is an emotionally complex film, with a lot of layers and yes, a lot of dick jokes that perhaps the Apatow gang should be above by now (still, it’s all in the delivery which is admittedly incredibly funny). Will we have time to spit out a proper review this week? Who knows. Sorta feel like we need to see it again; there’s a lot to absorb in the film. It’s a big meal, not a light trifle.

We had somewhat mixed feelings about “Funny People,” but not because of the length, but because it just doesn’t seem to know where to go or where to close in the end. It gets a bit lost in its third act and, that’s the way it was written. Take away 30 minutes of character development at the beginning or throughout the picture and it’s still going to feel a little wobbly in the end.

We’re still trying to negotiate our thoughts and feelings around the film, but perhaps one of the issues or problems with the picture is that it aims for something more, something deeper and tries to say something of merit about genuine adulthood (40-something-+), relationships and human nature, but concludes with a muddled, unclear message. Perhaps that’s more like life, no clear cut, easy answers, but it does leave for a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. Still the picture is worth seeing. This review might have just vanished away in a cloud of forgotten mental smoke and it might be too difficult to regain. Also the chances of us seeing it again before Friday seem nil.

“My goal was to make a film that was just as funny as my other two films, but which also dug a lot deeper and was not afraid to be more emotional,” Judd Apatow told Roger Ebert. “We didn’t put anything in the film just to be funny — it also had to get at the truth of this type of situation. It was very scary because I am so used to letting the laugh count guide me as to whether or not the movie is working well. Sometimes this movie is working really well when there are no laughs. That’s new for me. I prefer to hear noises from the crowd wall-to-wall to make me sleep better at night.”

We’ll say this: “Funny People” was exactly what we wanted it to be in that it was more than just a mild farce and it did explore bittersweet and dark territory just like we wanted it to. It just might not have worked 100% throughout the entire picture…

What we really wanna know is why Steven Spielberg’s cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (perhaps best well known for photographing “Saving Private Ryan,” and that still-amazing 20-minute DDay assault opening) shot this thing. Yes, that camera moves a few times and there’s 0ne or two scenes briefly in service of style and technique, but you won’t see this film and go, “ahhh, yeah, that’s such a tasty Janusz framing!”