Funny People

George Simmons, who started his performing career as a stand-up comic, is a movie star, generally of high concept lowbrow movies. His movie star status affords him many privileges in life, such as all the indiscriminate sex he wants, which is a lot, although he would admit that he leads a lonely life in not having what he considers true close friends. He has just been diagnosed as having a rare form of leukemia, which his doctors want to try to treat with experimental therapy. He decides not to divulge the news of his illness to the public. Reflecting on his life because of the diagnosis, George decides to go back to his roots of performing stand-up at comedy clubs. It is at one of those impromptu comedy club appearances that he meets Ira Wright, a struggling comic. Ira isn't adept as a stand-up comic, largely as he doesn't know how to deliver the material with impact. He is not averse to doing whatever to get laughs at his shows, from paying friends and acquaintances to be audience plants, to stealing material. He has a "woe is me" attitude about his lack of success and his need to make money as a clerk at a supermarket deli counter. Regardless of quitting that job, he sleeps on the pull-out sofa of his friend, Mark Taylor Jackson, who has a modicum of fame starring in "Yo Teach", a second rate sitcom albeit airing on network TV. Another interloper in Mark's apartment is their mutual friend, Leo Koenig, a fellow stand-up with slightly better comic instincts than Ira. It is only out of circumstance that it is Ira who George chooses first to write him some material, then second to work as his personal assistant, that latter job largely as his friend for hire, which Ira gladly accepts as a way both for a glimpse into fame and into comic success. George also contemplates reconnecting with his old girlfriend, former actress Laura, the one he believes got away, their break-up twelve years ago because of his infidelity. Laura is now married to Clarke, an Aussie businessman who is often away on business in China, they who have two adolescent daughters. George eventually learns that Laura is unhappy in her marriage, in part because of Clarke's absences and what she believes is also his infidelity. George and Laura do reconnect as she finds out about his dire diagnosis. George's relationship with both Laura and Ira may be affected by the ups and downs in his life prognosis.