In America, the taunt that can really sting those older than 18 is, "You're a virgin who can't drive!" I treasure the retort proffered by Cher, poised heroine of 1995's Clueless, who responds to her taunters, "You know how picky I am about my shoes - and they only go on my feet."
If Andy, the bicycle-riding hero of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, were as quick-witted as Cher, he'd probably say, "You know how important it is to keep your action figure in its original packaging."
Quick-witted, Andy is not. But he discovers much to his (and our) delight, that women like a guy who takes his time. Think of Andy, played by the geekily appealing Steve Carell, as Chastity to Clueless' Cher.
Although Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin boasts the lewdness quotient of a losing-it sex comedy, the film (cowritten by the director and his star) provides the curious experience of watching a Porky's raunchfest morph into a Doris Day chastity comedy.
So help me, Apatow's film succeeds in having its virginity and losing it, too. Like Wedding Crashers, it purges its cynicism with romanticism.
Carell, a Daily Show regular best known to filmgoers as the anchor dude reduced to speaking in tongues by Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty and as the robotic meteorologist in Anchorman, has a well-scrubbed, opaque face ideal for projecting your drama here.
He could be a middle manager, a serial killer, the stockroom guy at an electronics emporium. He plays this last in Virgin, the backwards boy whose apartment sees hundreds of action figures and zero action.
In conceiving Andy, Carell and Apatow find a balance between the salty and sweet, prurient and puritanical.
Much to Andy's shame, he involuntarily outs himself as a celibate when invited to play poker with three randy colleagues. His unforgettable description of the contour and texture of the female breast is the giveaway.
Andy's colleagues (the very funny Paul Rudd, Romany Malco and Seth Rogen) promptly vow to solve Andy's virginity problem, plying him with grooming tips and pickup lines of the sort that the SNL Wild and Crazy Guys would think too crude and lewd.
Although Andy is attracted to Trish (Catherine Keener), a tightly wound single mother who doesn't want to rush into a physical relationship, his friends urge him on Beth (Elizabeth Banks), a loosey-goosey good-time girl.
It is the movie's view that innocence is not something to be shed but rather cherished that distinguishes Virgin from the standard-issue sex comedy.
As his pals play straight-eye-for-the-virgin-guy, Andy confronts the fears that have kept him from physical intimacy, and his pals confront those that have kept them from emotional intimacy. It's a bracingly coarse, surprisingly tender movie.
Contact movie critic Carrie Rickey
at 215-854-5402 or crickey@phillynews.com.
Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/carrierickey.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
*** (out of four stars)
Produced by Judd Apatow, Shauna Robertson and Clayton Townsend, directed by Apatow, written by Apatow and Steve Carell, photography by Jack N. Green, music by Wolfgang Amadeus and Lyle Workman, distributed by Universal Pictures.
Running time: 2 hours, 1 min.
Andy Stitzer. . . Steve Carell
Trish. . . Catherine Keener
David. . . Paul Rudd
Jay. . . Romany Malco
Paula. . . Jane Lynch
Parent's guide: R (sexual candor, potty humor, profanity, drugs)
Playing at: area theaters