I’m seeing The 40 year-old Virgin this evening, at which point I’ll fully consider Henry Cabot Beck’s claim
about costar Catherine Keener in Sunday’s N.Y. Daily News, to wit: “Few actresses can step into a high-testosterone comedy and single-handedly turn it into a heartfelt experience, but that’s what Keener does [here].” This is another film that has been all but killed by the trailer giving away what feels like too many of the gags and then cutting and compressing them so severely that they’re not even faintly funny. Paul Rudd and two other guys try to get the virginal Steve Carrell laid, and he endures several horrible dates and other misfortunes before things finally go right with Keener’s character…right? Having seen the trailer something like eight or nine times, I’m half-convinced there’s almost nothing the full-length feature can do or show me that I haven’t already digested or smirked at. It feels used up, like I’ve already seen it on an airplane.