Review: "I Love You, Man"

After years of being a bridesmaid, "bromance" is finally making its way down the aisle as the main event in the new Paul Rudd comedy I Love You, Man, which tells the slight but surprisingly touching story of a straight groom-to-be trying his best to connect with other guys before his big day.

The whole bromance gag has never been as big as it has been the last few years, where the twin forces of slackerdom and self-effacing buddy comedy have merged to create a unique kind of movie that actually celebrates emotional intimacy between two men without a trace of "gay panic".

While the Judd Apatow school of comedy (particularly valedictorian Seth Rogen, whose buddy comedies Superbad and Pineapple Express pushed the boundaries of straight guy romance to new limits) may be responsible for the blockbuster success of the form, sly subversive Will Ferrell really deserves much of the credit for paving the road for I Love You, Man's tandem Vespa-riding heroes: from Talladega Nights to Blades of Glory, Ferrell has been churning out mainstream dumb-guy comedy for years that doesn't play to homophobia or shy away from the squishy parts of love between straight guys.

In I Love You, Man Rudd (yes, he's as adorable as ever, if not more) plays Peter, a real estate agent who in the first scene proposes to his equally adorable girlfriend Zooey (Rashida Jones) after eight months of dating bliss.

The two are charming, successful and clearly in love, but trouble rears its head when it becomes evident that Peter is one of those guys who puts all his friendship eggs into one basket: namely, serial monogamy.

After taking some ribbing from his family (including his gay brother, Robbie, played by SNL's Andy Samberg) and overhearing a conversation between Zooey and her bridesmaids about how his lack of guy friends might spell trouble as the marriage matures, Peter decides that he needs to take action and find himself some "bros".

Two subtle points are worth noting right off the bat: First, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Peter, or with Peter and Zooey's relationship. They're actually perfectly fine. So we can breathe a sigh of relief that we're not going to have to sit through a romantic comedy where a couple is "fixed" by some wacky antics, and as we'll see later, it means that the central relationship isn't really central at all.

And two, as Peter embarks on his vision quest of dudeness, no one raises an eyebrow about how "gay" it might sound to be courting men for friendship. Everyone, from his family (his mom, an underused Jane Curtin, even inadvertently sets him up on a real date with a gay man) to his wife's friends (including a hilarious Jaime Pressly, whose marriage to Jon Favreau is cautionary at best) celebrates the attempt, even affectionately coining the term "man-date" for Peter's meetings with new potential friends.

After a few misfires Peter meets a Venice Beach slacker named Sydney Fife (Jason Segel) at an open house he's hosting at Lou Ferrigno's house. Sydney is just crashing the open house for the food, but the two instantly connect, and Peter embarks on a colt-legged quest to make the no-nonsense Sydney his best man.

It might be a small point, but it will pay off in spades that the filmmakers made a clear decision to make this story a no-gay-panic zone. And considering that the movie is really a romantic comedy where the two people falling in love are straight men, it's a decision that averts a potential disaster.