The Treatment
Judd Apatow: This Is 40
Director Judd Apatow on his latest film, which stars his wife, Leslie Mann, and his two daughters, Maude and Iris.
"Dramedy" falls painfully short of describing the genre Judd Apatow has dominated for the past decade. Using real life, so closely mirrored that his real-life wife and children star in his latest film, This Is 40, Apatow extracts the absurdness of our day to day existence in a way that is drama-centered, but profoundly funny. "I look at everything as a drama with humor. I think life is funny. I don't have to look at the comedy part at all because, naturally, I find life absurd." Think of his body of work as a kind of comedy verite, and him as an auteur who is keenly aware of the hilarious disasters of our daily interactions with each other.
Banner image: Bil Zelman