I Heart Leslie Mann

I saw Knocked Up on Friday, and as the reviews say, it's spectacular, nay, miraculous. In the course of telling the story of how Katherine Heigl got drunk, put on beer-goggles, did the deed with Seth Rogen, got preggers, decided to have the baby, made it work with said schlubby babydaddy, and gave birth in an extremely realistic, terrifying, and very touching scene, it will make you laugh, cry, wish you were a stoner geek, wish you were a beautiful Type-A television personality, plan to have a baby as soon as possible, swear off sex forever, decide Seth Rogen is the beautiful love child of Will Ferrell and Tina Fey, and respect Ryan Seacrest.

But mostly it gave me a new love: Leslie Mann. She plays Katherine Heigl's unhappily married sister, and she is a revelation. (The picture at left is from The 40 Year Old Virgin, wherein she also stole scenes as the drunk girl who puked on Steve Carrell). She's beautiful in that blond, small, delicate-featured, fake-looking way, like Holly Madison, Hugh Hefner's main girlfriend (who is also bizarrely fascinating in that she's fairly smart and the whole thing seems beneath her, but she seems to really believe she's in love with Hugh, not that I watch Girls Next Door or whatever, you know, I hear things), and has a teeny little high-pitched girl voice like Joey Lauren Adam's, but she's as funny as Julianne Moore in Big Lebowski and Sarah Silverman in whatever rolled into one. The hilarity is slaps you in the face even more pleasingly coming from such a Barbie-looking person.

Possibly the best scene in the movie is when Leslie and a very pregnant Katherine Heigl get shot down by the cute-girl-assessing bouncer at a club, and Leslie unleashes a long, profane tirade at him which she then winds down into "Doorman. DOORMAN!! Doorman. Doorman! DOORMAN! doorman." The bouncer takes her aside and tells her it's all true, that he can't stand the stress of judging people based on their looks, and that the reason he can't her in is because she's old as shit,* but even so she's totally fine and he would tap that ass if he could. As he pays her this thoroughly obscene compliment, her face relaxes into a look of pure, beatific joy, and I want to pee my pants.

The fact that Leslie is the wife of director Judd Apatow and that their two kids are also in the movie, and are also hilarious, is about enough to turn my actress crush into a full-blown stalkerfest for the whole family. (There they are, minus the littler girl, who they presumably left at home because they are also responsible like Mother Theresa and observe bedtimes.) Holy God, how can they muster the energy to dress themselves, given how much time they must spend rolling on the floor, quaking with laughter at each others' uproariousness, and/or gazing into a mirror and drooling over their unparalleled cuteness?


*IMDB says she's five years older than me, so if she's old as shit, I'm at least old as a fart. But if that means I can be more like Leslie Mann, I'm OK with it.