Well, I have often–well, I have once or twice–talked about the Sandlerverse and the Ferrellverse and even the Apatowverse. I’d say this is a crossover event, but really it’s an Apatow movie with Adam Sandler in the lead role, and it relies on actors from the Apatowverse (Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill), so this has nothing to do with the Sandlerverse at all. And it’s not even a comedy–it is a drama about comedians, so it has some jokes, but the situations themselves are not comic.
Sandler plays an older, established comic who went from stand-up to movie success who learns he is dying of a blood cancer, so he sort of adopts a younger comic to be his protégé and assistant and…. friend. Sandler’s character also tries to reconcile with his ex-fiancé who is now married to an Australian businessman and has two children. When he learns that his cancer is cured by the experimental treatment he received, he almost convinces her to leave her husband, but ultimately everyone learns that Sandler’s character has not really grown from his experience and is still very self-involved.
Unlike, say, Step Brothers, this lack of growth is not celebrated–it’s recognized as tragic. But, eventually, in the dénouement as the credits roll, we see a bit of a reconciliation.
Like Spanglish, this is an early dramatic turn for Sandler, but the character is not sympathetic enough to draw us in, and the Rogen-based assistant is, well, played by Rogen. He just doesn’t draw me in.
As I have mentioned, I’m probably going to miss a lot of Sandler’s later œuvre as it’s on streaming platforms and not in wide release, although perhaps if the streaming market implodes, they’ll be available elsewhere. Also, you are correct in guessing that I was disappointed that œuvre did not give me the opportunity to pretentiously use another word with accents, although I did get a chance to use one of those smashed-together letters.
