As painful as breakups can be, they do not often go wanting for moments of ridiculousness, a fact that Jason Segel and Judd Apatow mine for great effect in the new comedy, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." 

The plot is sitcom-simple: guy (Segel) loses girl (Kristen Bell); guy goes to Hawaii to unwind only to find said girl with a new boyfriend (Russell Brand); and then guy gets his groove back with a freespirited new girl (Mila Kunis).

Simplistic, yes, but so is a twenty-something man-child tentatively entering fatherhood, or two high school best friends trying to buy alcohol.  This is an Apatow flick — nothing stays simple for long. The contrivances of the tropical island romance are all turned on their heads here — Segel and Apatow care less about them than they do with cataloging all the peculiarities behind relationship trauma.  The immediate need to move on.  The nausea doing so causes.  The idolization of trivial moments.  The pervasive, nonstop crying.

These things do matter, and in its willingness to go to places most romantic comedies wouldn't dare ("Fool's Gold" never saw Matthew McConaughey expressing his fears of catching an STD to a pediatrician, for example), "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" deserves some kind of medal.  It's one of the most honest romantic comedies I've ever seen.

All of which would mean nothing, if it weren’t funny.  Really funny.  Without the humor, it'd just be the 2006 misfire "The Breakup," which was all truthful bile and no wit. 

Between this, "Walk Hard" and "Superbad," I don't think anyone has been able to wrest more humor from the exposed male member than Apatow has been — Segel's Peter Bretter spends most of his big breakup scene completely naked.  This enhances his character's vulnerability.  It's also choke-to-death funny, as is his obsession with the Tupperware Bell's Sarah Marshall bought him.  Or his crying fits, which flare up like summer tornadoes and are just as destructive.

Even still, the humor isn't just breakup gags.  Segel's script is stuffed with loopy, off-the-wall gags, from Sarah's inane, "CSI"-like TV show (the ludicrously titled "Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime"), to the great Paul Rudd's fantastic cameo as a stoned-to-the-point-of-brain-damage surfing instructor.  In the flick's most inspired most of comic lunacy, we get the unveiling of Peter's theatrical stage play, a musical based on "Dracula" and enacted completely with Muppets. 

There's a freewheeling joy to the gags in the flick, a willingness to toss everything out there, no matter how weird they may seem.

That joy is one of the key components to why this flick works: no one's a villain here.  This trait is obvious from the moment Peter arrives in Hawaii — everyone Peter meets is really pretty nice and genuinely becomes invested in his troubles. 

This sympathy carries over to the depiction of Sarah; Apatow and Co. refuse to demonize her.  She's a complex female character. While we sympathize with Peter when she dumps him, it's painfully obvious Sarah has a million valid reasons to do so. 

Even her new boyfriend, Brand's British rocker Aldous Snow, is not only not a bad guy, but also the only character in the flick who is completely and totally honest and open with everybody he meets.  As even Peter admits, late in the flick, "I wanted to hate you, but you're just so (expletive) cool."

Like the other gems in the Apatow canon ("The 40-Year Old Virgin," "Knocked Up," "Superbad"), I'm impressed by the premium put on performance. Maybe it was the precedence set by Steve Carell and Catherine Keener in "Virgin," but no one goes at half-speed just because this is farce.

Segel's an enormously appealing lead.  I may be biased — I've been a fan of his since about age 14 — but he brings so much humor and warmth to the lead without dipping into sentimentality.  Getting dumped can make you crazy, it can make you sick, and it can definitely make you a little creepy; Segel's performance doesn't shy away from any of that.  If there's any justice, this flick will do for him what "Knocked Up" did for Seth Rogen.

As the women in Peter's life, Bell and Kunis (the eponymous Sarah Marshall and Peter's new squeeze, respectively) are terrific; Kunis is funny and quick and spunky in ways she's never been before, and I think Bell probably gives the best performance in the flick.  I'm convinced she can do any genre, and she certainly gets to show off her skill in full.  Here's a woman who needed to leave her relationship but did so in the worst way possible, and what makes the second half of the film so interesting (and fascinating dark and twisted at times, truth be told) is watching her struggle with the ramifications of her choice. 

Also, and this is for the geeks out there, any fans of her brilliant-but-canceled TV show "Veronica Mars" will note more-than-a-few subtle references to her post-"Mars" career.

Then there's Russell Brand.  His Aldous Snow is one of the great modern comic characters in film, right up there with Farva from "Super Troopers" and The Dude from "The Big Lebowski," an omnisexual, preening, wickedly sharp yet still sympathetic rockstar.  I'm not convinced Brand is from this planet — his rhythms are so weird and so off and so unique, and that's what makes him so great, watching this gloriously bizarre creation (a mix of Keith Richards, Oasis front men Liam and Noel Gallagher, and maybe the Star Child from "2001") trounce in and steal every scene he's given.

And because this is the sort of flick that just keeps giving, we get terrific supporting comic performances from Rudd, "Saturday Night Live's" Bill Hader and Jack McBrayer ("30 Rock's" Kenneth).  I did get tired, though, of Jonah Hill's love-struck (at Aldous Snow) waiter — with the exception of his stuff in "Superbad," I just don't find Hill all that funny.  Still, it's small potatoes when compared to everything else that's good.

If this flick does a major flaw, it's director Nick Stoller.  A far less proficient craftsman then Apatow or "Superbad" helmer Greg Mottola, Stoller's control of pace is markedly more uncertain — some scenes and transitions are put together awkwardly, making the now-trademark genial plotlessness of Apatow's comedies feel more aimless than usual. 

This isn't fatal by any means; Stoller's perfectly capable of selling the many gags (although the actors and script are so good he'd be hard pressed to muck them up), but his flick's notably less polished, and in that regard I'd rank it just below "Virgin," "Superbad" and "Knocked Up."

Still, this is only when compared to the heights of those other three flicks.  On its own, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a wildly irreverent and honest addition to the great romantic comedy canon, and a return to form for Apatow and his crew following the excretable "Drillbit Taylor." 

It's the best comedy of the year so far, and one I know I'll enjoy revisiting.  We've all got our own Sarah Marshall experiences, and it's a pleasure to watch someone else's for a change instead of reliving my own.

What did you think of this movie? Leave your comments below.

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