I Love You, Man

The world of dude friendship is simple yet complicated, governed by its own set of unspoken rules. And as for how to cultivate dude friendships, well there are no rules or any guidelines. You just, for some weird reason, start hanging out together.

Unless you happen to be one of those guys who gets along better with women than he does with men, and that is where you find real-estate agent Peter Klaven in the raunchy and sweet film, I Love You, Man.

Klaven (Paul Rudd) is engaged to his gorgeous girlfriend, Zooey (the lovely Rashida Jones) and as he prepares for the wedding, he realizes he has no suitable candidate for a best man because he'd rather make fancy coffee drinks for his women friends than shoot pool with the guys.

In fact, poor Klaven is what you'd might call a metrosexual, a straight guy very in tune to his feminine side but completely straight.

What is a man with only female friends to do? Well, you go on a man date, of course. A series of man dates until you find the perfect male friend who will be your best man.

This could have been a disaster of a movie, but Rudd plays Klavin with such sweet sincerity that you can't help but root for him. And you cheer when he finally meets his soul dude, Sydney Fife, somewhat of a successful loser who mooches food at Klaven's open houses.

Fife is 365 degrees the opposite of Klaven. He lives in a trailer, refuses to pick up his dog's poop and likes to yell really loud in public, causing all sorts of embarrassment for anyone who decides to be his friend.

Yet, as played by Jason Segel (the star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Sydney has a sweet sensitive side hidden beneath all of that grossness. And the dude-esque chemistry between Rudd and Segel is just hot. Well, maybe not hot. Umm, adorable? Oh, screw it. The chemistry works.

And the movie works, in a sort of predictable romantic comedy way, except we're talking about guys, though this isn't the comedic version of Brokeback Mountain. In an funny way, the movie gets at the awkwardness of male friendships, the facade of masculinity we guys use to keep our distance, to not express our feelings because hey, only women do that sort of thing.

But men need love, too. They need man love, and in this movie, you can be man enough to say I love you to another dude and still be a man.

Awwww, ain't that so sweet.