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I LOVE YOU, MAN

• Directed by John Hamburg
• Written by John Hamburg and Larry Levin
• Starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel
• 

The comedy I Love You, Man marks the overdue emergence of Paul Rudd as a star. Since he first gained attention as Alicia Silverstone's step-brother in the 1995 film Clueless, Rudd has shown a combination of comic subversion and heart-throb sensitivity that begged for bigger roles.

A classically trained actor who has performed on Broadway and television (he was a recurring character on Friends), Rudd has been playing the sidekick roles in a series of similar comedies involving either Judd Apatow or Frat Packers Ben Stiller and Will Ferrell. His résumé includes Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Knocked Up and Night at the Museum. And last year he was yet another sidekick in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, written by and starring Jason Segel.

Rudd's few romantic comedies tend to come with a twist. He was Jennifer Aniston's gay roommate in Object of My Affection and Michelle Pfeiffer's younger man in the direct-to-DVD I Could Never Be Your Woman.

I Love You, Man, directed and co-written by John Hamburg (Along Came Polly, Meet the Parents), is being dubbed as a "bromantic" comedy. The word "bromance" was coined by a skateboard journalist back in the nineties, but only took off in the media in the last year, perhaps for the same sociological reasons that have made Apatow's male-bonding films so popular.

In I Love You, Man, Rudd plays Peter Klaver, a Los Angeles real-estate agent who is about to get married to Zooey (Rashida Jones). One night he overhears her confessing to her friends that his shortage of buddies worries her. In fact, his entire social-support system consists of his dryly patronizing parents (J.K. Simmons and Jane Curtin) and his acerbic, gay younger brother Robbie (Andy Samberg).

After an unfortunate attempt to integrate with Zooey's crowd (which includes Jaime Pressly and Jon Favreau as a squabbling couple whose marriage is sustained on makeup sex), Peter enlists his brother, a personal trainer, to help him find a man friend. That sets up a variation on the standard bad-dates montage - the old guy, the squeaky-voiced guy, the man who plants a tonsil-exploring kiss on him - before Peter meets his same-sex soulmate.

Sydney (Segel) is a gangly, charismatic know-it-all who crashes open houses to meet divorcées. He shows up when Peter is selling TV star Lou "The Hulk" Ferrigno's Hollywood home and offers advice about potential buyers. The two men exchange business cards. Later, Peter leaves a nervous phone message on Sydney's machine. Sydney calls back and things start to percolate.

Under Sydney's tutelage, Paul regresses into adolescence, playing hooky, eating junk food and jamming to Rush songs in Sydney's "man cave" (the Canadian rock group also makes an appearance in the film). Though Rudd, who turns 40 this year, is more than a decade older than Segel, you could easily imagine their ages reversed. Segel projects a more vulnerable version of Vince Vaughn's sardonic brashness. Rudd, bright-eyed and eager, is the adorably goofy ingénue.

The comedy is less concerned with Peter's mildly embarrassing man-crush than his overall social clumsiness, including his attempts to give his friend a cool nickname. Both Rudd and Segel have splendid comic timing and their improvised scenes leap out from the script.

I Love You, Man could be considered a conventional romcom times two, as Peter goes through the romance, the obstacle and the reconciliation with both Zooey and Sydney, though this is less of a romantic triangle than a case of crossed lines. For token complication, Zooey becomes threatened by Peter's new relationship and offended by Sydney's boorish side, although there's little here that undermines the essential lightness of the film.

As usual, obstacles are easily surmounted and removed, and the audience gets the familiar message of the modern dude comedy: Boys are fun to play with, but in the long run, girls are better for you.