From left: Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann in ‘This Is 40.’ (Universal Pictures/Suzanne Hanover)

Any of those conservative carnival barkers who complain that Hollywood never reflects family-friendly values has clearly never seen a Judd Apatow film. Yes, Apatow’s films are laced with nudity, vulgarity, fart jokes, drug use and digs at women, but all of them aim for some kind of happy tranquility.

That thirst for domestic bliss, however, is at the heart of This Is 40, Apatow’s return to Pete and Debbie, a pair of characters he established in 2007’s Knocked Up. Played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann—who also happens to be Apatow’s real-life wife—Pete and Debbie were the adults in Knocked Up‘s sea of overgrown man-children.

Of course, given the spotlight themselves, Pete and Debbie’s suburban sturdiness in some sun-kissed section of Los Angeles quickly shows its cracks. Both are turning 40, and though Debbie is so afraid of the milestone she spends half the film lying about her age, both partners are trying to shave years off their lives. Debbie has fitness sessions with Jason Segel (returning, quite hilariously, from Knocked Up), but puffs cigarettes in secret, while Pete is often outfitted for his road bike, but is always up for a heavily iced cupcake.

But trying to act younger is the least of their problems. This Is 40 is a celebration of nuclear families, but only after all the emotional scabs are picked and bled. Pete and Debbie’s daughters—played by Apatow and Mann’s kids—are a 13-year-old discovering that period in which you rebel against every parental decision (Maude Apatow) and an 8-year-old smart-ass (Iris Apatow). Throw on money troubles, stalled careers and fathers with young families of their own, it makes one forget Apatow is in the business of making us laugh.

Don’t worry: The punchlines abound, and Apatow’s script for This Is 40 is much funnier than his saggy 2009 outing Funny People. But there is an overarching sadness. Pete and Debbie’s attempts to reignite their romance are promptly unbuckled by having to tend to their daughters. Efforts to bond with their children lead to four-sided hissy fits. And when Pete and Debbie are children themselves—of a slobbish Albert Brooks and frigid John Lithgow, respectively—they are even more helpless.

Debbie tries to keep apace with life by running a boutique clothing store, but her ability to manage shopgirls played by Charlene Yi and Megan Fox is barely more effective than her parenting. Pete, meanwhile, has founded his own niche record label in the years since Knocked Up, but his prize pig is the English bluesman Graham Parker, whose appeal is not strong enough to pay the mortgage. (Parker, by the way, is very game to play a fuddy-duddy version of himself.)

It’s Brooks, though, who carries Apatow’s pathos here. Raising a set of identical, rambunctious, seven-year-old blond triplets, Larry, Pete’s father, is the kind of old man a successful 40-year-old like Pete might want to avoid. Larry is a financial burden; what’s unspoken but even more frightening is that this is Pete’s potential destiny if he fucks it all up with Debbie. Still, Larry, buried under lines of self-flagellating deadpan, cares more for the bonds of family than anyone.

As the tale of two aging Gen X-ers, though, This Is 40 is also Apatow’s most autobiographical. And Rudd, a longtime member of the Apatovian stable, is as good a surrogate the director can get. Rudd is handsomer than the average 40-year-old, but at heart, he’s one of the schlubs—sheepish until someone (usually Debbie) sets him off, flailing at his career and straining to be the cool dad.

Perhaps the real Apatow household is far happier, but any parents who have passed the big 4-0 or children who have watched their folks freak out over that special birthday can commiserate with the unhappiness that weighs over this film. Much as in life, stretches of worry and sadness are broken up by momentary fits of hilariousness, such as when Mann tears into one of her older daughter’s classmates (Facebook teasing) or when the brilliant Melissa McCarthy turns up as the boy’s mother. Lena Dunham, no stranger to casting one’s own family, snarks her way through a few scenes as one of Pete’s assistants.

And while This Is 40 is Apatow’s most wholesome film, structurally, it might be his messiest. The 134-minute run time is noticeable, and just what its lead characters are searching for is unknown. No one is trying to lose their virginity, carry a baby to term or fight a cancer diagnosis. It is, at its core, about two people still trying to learn on the job. The film is certainly uneven. Then again, so is life.

***

This Is 40
Written and Directed by Judd Apatow
With Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, John Lithgow, Maude Apatow, Iris Apatow, Megan Fox and Graham Parker
Running time 134 minutes
Rated R for the facts of life.
Opens today everywhere.