As much as I may deny it, I’m not as sharp as I was 20 years ago, when I was a 20-year-old college student. Whatever I have lost in the intervening years, hopefully I’ve made up for in maturity and intelligence. But don’t take my word for it, I’m in a walking state of denial about a lot of things these days. I fired up the new 4KUHD of Judd Apatow’s comedy classic The 40-Year-Old Virgin excited to relive a movie I haven’t seen in full since its initial release. This was back when comedies could be box office megahits, could play for weeks on end, could build, and solidify its fanbase before moving on to a lucrative afterlife on home video. Watching the movie in 2025, the film certainly shows its age and the nostalgia I thought I was dipping back into turned out to be of a different variety. The first time I watched The 40-Year-Old Virgin, I thought it was the peak of modern comedy. Being 20 years old and not knowing any better, it may well have been the modern peak for me, for at least a little bit.
As we know now and didn’t really know at the time of the film’s release is that Steve Carell should’ve ruled the back half of the 2000s and early 2010s as one of our studio comedy juggernauts. Alas, The Office served him plenty well. As Andy, the titular virgin, Carell gives maybe his best film performance, and I don’t say that to knock his dramatic chops. He’s a legitimately great actor, and Virgin maximizes his strengths. With Carell serving as co-writer with Apatow, it’s hardly a surprise, but still worth noting.
Comedy premises don’t come much more simplistic than “dudes trying to get laid,” which is to the film’s benefit. In its heart this is a rom-com in the guise of a hangout comedy. The title alone tells you all you need to know about where the story will end up. When the film is adhering to the rom-com formula it threatens to cave in on itself. The saving grace is the chemistry between Carell and Catherine Keener, as Trish. Most of the actor pairings throughout the film work because everyone is really good at what they do, but Carell and Keener have to do the bulk of the film’s emotional heavy lifting and that gives them a leg up on everyone else stuck mostly playing one note.
Like what happens to nearly every comedy, a number of jokes have aged poorly and in a way that makes me wonder if they were ever truly funny to begin with. Take, for instance, the “you know how I know you’re gay?” conversation between Seth Rogen’s Cal and Paul Rudd’s David. It’s not a particularly offensive tangent, but all of those lines are so leaden and emblematic of one of Apatow’s biggest weaknesses as a filmmaker, which is the tendency to let riff off scenes go longer than they should. I don’t say this to be prudish because there are plenty of childish jokes here that still crack me up. What stood out to me while watching the film again is that its silliest jokes are the most successful.
I don’t know that I ever appreciated that Andy’s brain trust (David, Cal, and Romany Malco’s Jay) had nothing but terrible advice to share. In a movie full of antiquated ideas about sex and relationships, Apatow and Carell are right on the money when it comes to the ignorance of fools. Nowhere is this more evident than the scene when Andy takes Trish’s daughter Marla (Kat Dennings) to health clinic for information on sex. Outside of the woman running the information session and Marla, the room is full of arrogant doofuses who ask if they can stop their daughter’s menstrual cycle. This scene also serves as Carell’s best moment, both comedically and dramatically. The way he asks, “is it true that if you don’t use it you lose it?” and deftly clocks Marla’s discomfort and steps in to save her is great stuff.
With the sheer volume of jokes packed into the movie’s two-hour runtime, it doesn’t matter much that a chunk of humor doesn’t work for me in 2025. There is still plenty to laugh at. It’s still a delight to see young Kevin Hart pop up as the customer trying to work Jay for an extended warranty “for the price of…on the house.” Malco spars with Hart and nearly everything they say in their exchange is quote-worthy. Speaking of Malco, he emerged as the film’s MVP on this viewing. Jay’s advice might be the worst, or the least applicable for Andy, but Malco leans into Jay’s arrogance and underlying insecurities in a way that is deeply recognizable.
Without a doubt, the most surprising thing about revisiting The 40-Year-Old Virgin, is the stark realization that I’m now as old, or older, than most of the characters and knowing that I was probably just as dumb about love, sex, and relationships as they are.
For the film’s 20th anniversary, Universal is rereleasing the film in theaters as well as issuing a new 4KUHD release and a steelbook option. The clarity of the image helps transport viewers back to 2005, but the Dolby Atmos sound doesn’t get to stretch its legs much with the dialogue-heavy nature of the film. All of the old commentaries and supplements are part of the package, alongside the set’s sole new feature, a conversation with Apatow, Carell, Keener, Jane Lynch, Kat Dennings, and Gerry Bednob It’s a fun trip down memory lane with plenty of amusing anecdotes. One of the highlights is a story about how a rainy day on set led to more time shooting Jonah Hill’s scene with Keener, which in turn led to him getting more screen time than originally planned. Carnell and Dennings have a nice recollection about their scenes together, but it’s Lynch who kind of steals the show. Eventually the conversation turns toward an audience Q&A where things get a bit awkward, as they are wont to do with Q&As.
