'This is 40' is a curious film. A married couple with two daughters both turn forty in the same week burdened with unfulfilled ambitions and relationship issues.
Advertised as a comedy this is not laugh out loud stuff to judge by the session I attended yet it gave me regular quiet chuckles. There are numerous sharp observations about contemporary first world living which, unfortunately or inevitably, involve characters who behave unattractively displaying their warts and all. It is telling for a film viewed in almost total silence that the loudest reaction came from a combined shocked gasp across the auditorium when a mother goes over the top abusing a school principal. The same scene is replayed over the end credits in extended form and comes across as funny in a cringe inducing way. That replay suggests that much of the film's dialogue was improvised.
A shrewd observation of modern western life or just another gross out film? I'm in two minds so will rate it in the middle.
★★1/2
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