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Jonah Hill as Matthew the waiter

But the film's real focus is on Peter, the two women in his life, and the man who has come between Peter and his ex-girlfriend. It is to the film's credit that it gives each of these characters a chance to show some humanity, even when it would be all too easy to write them off as cartoonish or worse. Sarah, for example, may have broken Peter's heart, and that might in some sense make her the villain, but the film still has some sympathy for her, especially where her fears about the state of her career are concerned. (In one scene, two guys rip apart a low-budget horror movie that she starred in, and while their nit-picking works as a funny, spot-on critique of the genre, Sarah's irritation is genuine, and even justified.) And Aldous, for all his libidinal tendencies, takes no pleasure in sex when he can tell that he is being used—especially in a scene where Peter and Sarah go at it loudly, and competitively, with their respective partners on opposite sides of the same wall.

Compared to The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, this is a more lightweight sort of film, and the way its characters obsess over sex is less enlightening, for lack of a better word, than the exploration of sexual mores in those other films. This is especially true in the film's final reel, where people hook up and break up in a somewhat hasty fashion, and where decisions are based more on how the body responds to sexual stimulation—or doesn't, as the case may be—than on any conscious commitment to existing relationships.

Talk About It

1. The film shows Peter sleeping with strangers in a futile effort to forget Sarah, and then, after he goes to Hawaii for a vacation lasting only a few days, he begins a relationship with Rachel, the girl at the front desk of his hotel. Is his relationship with Rachel different from his one-night stands? How or how not? What sort of advice would you give him? Do rebound relationships ever work out? Why or why not?
2. What sort of attitudes do the characters in this film have toward sex? Is it just a casual activity? Is it something deeper? What sorts of contradictory attitudes are reflected in the behavior of these characters?
3. How does the portrayal of the religious newlywed couple come across? Realistic or unrealistic? Sometimes couples who have made a point of abstaining from sex before marriage have difficulty with sex after marriage—how would you deal with that?
4. Aldous tells Darald that God has a place in the bedroom, which eventually leads to Darald telling his wife, "You've got Christ between your thighs." Do you agree with Aldous? Disagree? Where and where not? What about Darald's statement to his wife? What is the relationship between sexuality and spirituality?

The Family Corner

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is rated R for sexual content (including several scenes of people in bed together), language (mostly four-letter words) and some graphic nudity (mostly shots of a naked man; plus a man goes to a public restroom that is decorated with photos of women flashing their breasts). One subplot involves a newlywed couple that has difficulty in the bedroom because of the husband's religious hang-ups; the husband turns to a rock star for advice and eventually says things to his wife like, "You've got Christ between your thighs."

Photos © Copyright Universal Studios

© Peter T. Chattaway subject to licensing agreement with Christianity Today International. All rights reserved. Click for reprint information.

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