Film

This Is 40

Name: This Is 40
Genre: Comedy
Released: 2012
Cast: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, John Lithgow, Megan Fox, Maude Apatow

Comedy

Judd Apatow's sprawling comedy about a marriage hitting forty and cracking under the weight of kids, debt, and the gap between who you thought you'd be. Warm and digressive, funny without easy answers. For anyone who's ever felt like an adult imposter or watched a long-term relationship survive on spite and habit.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like loose, talky domestic comedy where a marriage's bickering is funny precisely because it is so recognisable, and you don't mind wandering scenes that find warmth in small irritations.

Skip it if you want a tight plot or brisk pacing, since at over two hours it lingers on arguments and domestic detail, and its sharper jokes get buried in repetition.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a long, loose sitting: scenes wander, conversations circle the same worry, and the mood shifts only slowly.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Knocked Up2007

Apatow's earlier masterpiece about unplanned parenthood and relationship chaos. Similar warmth, similar willingness to let scenes breathe and characters be genuinely annoying. The DNA of This Is 40 is all over it.

But It's twelve years older and some of the gender dynamics haven't aged brilliantly. Also two and a half hours of people arguing.

Girls2012

Lena Dunham's HBO series about the specific exhaustion of being young and pretending you have it together. Same DNA as This Is 40 but inverted—the anxiety and self-sabotage of people still figuring out who they are, rather than people who thought they had the answer.

But The first season is raw in ways that feel deliberately unglamorous. If you need your comedy smooth, this will feel like watching paint that refuses to dry.

Divorce2016

Sarah Jessica Parker in an HBO dramedy about a marriage ending. Takes the marital despair of This Is 40 and asks what comes after the couple tries to stay together. Sharper, colder, but with real tenderness underneath.

But It's bleak in a way that doesn't resolve neatly. Some viewers wanted it to be funnier or more conclusive. It isn't either.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from This Is 40

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Boyhood2014

Both are interested in the quotidian despair of adult life and parenting, the way time passes whether you're ready or not. This Is 40 is one evening in that life. Boyhood is the whole arc.

Richard Linklater filmed the same cast over twelve years. It's a meditation on time and parenting and watching your life accumulate. The deepest answer to what This Is 40 was asking: what happens when you get older? This shows you, without flinching.

But It moves at the pace of actual time. Some scenes are quiet for a very long time. For some viewers this is meditative; for others it's slow to the point of inert.

Fleabag2016

Phoebe Waller-Bridge's confessional comedy about chaos and self-awareness. Like This Is 40, it finds humour in the gap between who you present and who you actually are. Wildly inventive with form, genuinely hilarious.

But It's only six episodes per season. After you finish, the absence is painful. Also it gets quite sad.

Love2016

Judd Apatow and Lesley Arfin's Netflix series about a relationship without the wedding-ring fairy tale. Messy, digressive, full of scenes that seem to go nowhere then cut to your heart. Feels like an extended version of what This Is 40 was exploring.

But It commits to the messiness so thoroughly that some scenes are hard to watch. And it doesn't always feel earned. Some of it is just indulgence.

The Dinner2017

A chamber piece about two couples and one apocalyptic evening. Takes the marital tension of This Is 40 and removes all the humour, then sees what's left. Spielberg directing, Ralph Fiennes and Steve Carell at their most uncomfortable.

But It's punishing. Not cathartic. If you want your drama to resolve with love or understanding, this will disappoint you.

Trainwreck2015

Amy Schumer's romantic comedy where the chaos and self-sabotage are the point, not the problem to be fixed. Apatow producing, same sprawling style, but with Schumer's willingness to be truly unlikeable and funny simultaneously.

But Schumer's comedy has aged unevenly for some viewers. And the film is very interested in being crude in ways This Is 40 wasn't.

Chloe2010

Atom Egoyan's intimate thriller about suspicion and infidelity. Like This Is 40, it's interested in how people lie to each other inside relationships. Claustrophobic where This Is 40 is expansive, but the same unease about trust.

But It's slow and glacial. If you found This Is 40 slow, this will feel like watching ice melt. Also quite sad.

The Other Woman2014

Cameron Diaz and Leslie Mann in a revenge comedy about infidelity and female friendship. Mann brings her gift for comedy into slightly different terrain. It's lighter than This Is 40 but concerned with similar relationship breakdowns.

But It's much more formulaic. By the end it reverts to standard romantic-comedy structure instead of staying weird. And some jokes don't land.

Scandal2012

Both centre marriages that are imploding, but where This Is 40 is quiet and domestic, Scandal is opera. Shows what happens when you take the same emotional core into melodrama instead of comedy.

Shonda Rhimes' Pulp Fiction of prestige television. Megan Fox-adjacent energy but inverted into high-stakes political thriller. It has nothing in common with This Is 40 tonally, but the same commitment to complex female characters and marital collapse. A completely different register of entertainment.

But It's a network thriller, which means it will eventually become aware of its own mythology in ways that undermine it. Also the later seasons get weird. But the first few are pure momentum.

Hannah Gadsby: Douglas2020

Both are interested in how people present themselves versus who they actually are, and both are willing to sit in the gap without resolving it. But where This Is 40 was a two-hour dramedy, this is a person alone with a microphone being brutally honest.

A stand-up special that's structurally more like a two-act play. Gadsby doing the same confessional, digressive, self-aware comedy as Apatow, but alone on a stage, about being queer and anxious and older. It has the exhaustion and clarity of This Is 40, but in a completely different form.

But It's stand-up, which is its own skill. If you don't enjoy that form, being smart won't compensate. Also it's about Gadsby's life, not a narrative.