Read More @HJ Previews: Trailer, Photos, Red Carpet, Prod Notes, Overview David Bruce, Webmaster

I loved 40-Year-Old Virgin. I liked Knocked Up quite a bit. But I have to say, after watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall this past week, I believe my ability to get excited about any upcoming Judd Apatow project has officially been destroyed. The fact that almost half of Sony Pictures' summer releases have Apatow's name attached to them kind of makes me cringe. And frankly, if I could forget I ever saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall, I wouldn't mind at all.

If you don't know the background of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, it goes something like this: Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) is the star of a hit crime drama. Peter Bretter (Jason Segel), the show's composer, is her boyfriend of six years. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, she breaks up with him. Within the next twenty, he proves himself completely unable to deal with this new development. He goes to a resort in Oahu that Sarah had told him about to try to get over her once and for all. As luck would have it, she is at the same resort with her new rocker boyfriend Aldous (Russell Brand). And with a cute hotel receptionist (Mila Kunis), a stoner surf instructor (Paul Rudd), and a few other unique hotel guests and employees in tow, Peter's task of forgetting Sarah Marshall takes off.

Don't get me wrong. Forgetting Sarah Marshall isn't horrible. It does have some great lines and a few scenes that remind me of the clever and realistic humor I loved in 40-Year-Old and Knocked Up. I will personally be on the lookout for a chance to use the line, "It's like the Sopranos. It's over. Find a new show." Although most of the characters in the movie wear thin after one funny scene or two, the unashamedly self-absorbed Aldous did keep me laughing through the end. And the fact that the movie enjoys making fun of some of the ridiculousness within its own creative machine did make me smile.

Although the movie's storyline is fairly weak and fails to engage the ins and outs of relationships anywhere near as well as 40-Year-Old or Knocked Up, it still hits on a few points that ring true. Moving on past a breakup is hard to do. Sometimes breakups leave us so far away from where we were before, we have no idea how to get back. Other times the relationship that has ended has become so much a part of our life, we have no idea how to move forward afterwards. And as much as we can often find ourselves categorizing recent breakups as either completely justified or completely unjustified, most relationships have both legitimate reasons why they were good and reasons why they were not working out.

One of my favorite scenes is one involving Sarah's habit of buying clothing for her boyfriends. As much as I have to say that many men do benefit from the fashion assistance of their girlfriends, sometimes the trend-based fashion choices of us women can be hilarious. And although I had never stopped to think about it before, Sarah Marshall made me see that small things like wearing the goofy clothes we buy them and carrying our purses can be acts of love that us women should recognize and appreciate in the men we date.

But even though Sarah Marshall has some good laughs and fun scenes, the problem is that more of them just feel shallow, familiar, and stupid. Its jokes wear out quickly. Instead of becoming more endearing as the story unfolds, most of its characters and their flaws just become more and more annoying. And frankly, other than Peter finally getting over Sarah, both its characters and its storyline barely go anywhere.

But as much as I didn't really like the movie, I have to say it still got me thinking. It got me thinking about everyone who made the movie, and why (besides the money) they may have wanted to be involved. It made me think about everyone who will love the movie, and why what it dishes out will be something they do not want to forget. And although I personally think much of the movie is just plain stupid, I got to thinking that maybe that's the point.

As much as Sarah Marshall is a movie about breaking up, it is also very much a movie about restoring a sense of confidence in oneself. But believe me, it doesn't do so by suddenly revealing its characters to be debonair sophisticates. As Peter says of the Dracula rock opera he is working on throughout the movie, once he realized it was a comedy not a tragedy, it all came together. And whether finding our own confidence requires us to get past what we see as flaws in our bodies, our minds, or our ability to live life, the key to doing just that may very well also be in recognizing that we are a part of a comedy not a tragedy, and that a bit of laughter never hurt anyone.

Maybe meeting a cast of people who seem like prime candidates for the Darwin Awards is exactly what we need to recognize we actually have a pretty decent head on our shoulders. Maybe seeing a non-airbrushed naked body smack dab in the middle of the big screen is what we need to realize that we need not have any reason to be ashamed of our non-Abercrombie real bodies. Maybe laughing at people bumbling through life's dreams and disappointments just as much as we have is exactly what we need to help us move from sadness to laughter in our own lives. And although the list of people I know who would enjoy Forgetting Sarah Marshall is definitely shorter than the list of people who would probably regret either the time or the money they spent watching it, maybe, just maybe the comic scramble of the Apatow comedy team that is Forgetting Sarah Marshall is exactly what you need. And if it is, don't let me stop you from seeing it.