The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Positive reviews and the fact that Steve Carell seemed to be developing into a phenomenon.

The sweetness of Carell’s character wins him my sympathy, and the extremity of his situation—how deeply nerdy he is, how terrible his particular plights are (getting vomited on, having his chest-wax removed, for just two examples—does likewise. While it gets close to the line in its purveying of gross out jokes, it never quite seems to lose its respect for the audience’s intelligence, it never quite seems in it just to make money.