Forgetting Sarah Marshall/Sans Sarah rien ne va

(Without Sarah nothing's fine)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a very funny comedy staring Jason Segel (Marshall in How I Met Your Mother - he also wrote the script), Kirsten "Veronica Mars" Bell, Russell Brand (without a mouse in his hair this time) and gorgeous Mila "Meg Griffin" Kunis. There is "Too much male front nudity" apparently, though, but I guess it's only fair in this sort of reversal of gender comedy (I'll explain that later).

It's the story of a guy (Peter) who is dating a TV star (the Sarah in question) who breaks up with him. Turns out it's because she's going out with mega famous British singer (Aldous, hilarious Russell Brand). After weeks of mopping around, Peter goes to Hawai to try and forget Sarah and meets lovely Rachel. But unfortunately for Peter, Sarah and her new lover are in the same hotel... How is he going to manage? 

I really enjoyed the film... It's usually the sort of stories told from a (distorted?) female point of view in rom-coms: the lovely girl gets dumped and goes through weeks of crying before deciding to move on, and sees her ex with his spanking new gorgeous and talented girlfriend. But overcomes in the end. 

There are also a lot of funny secondary characters, such as lovely Paul Rudd as a forgetful surfer. 

The whole film describes the process that Peter goes through from the break up to actually having found love again, while he is forgetting Sarah Marshall (Geddit?). Or while he is trying to, at first. It indicates some sort of timeline, or ongoing process. 

The French title, on the other hand, dwells on the way Peter feels straight after the breakup... Nothing's fine. I guess they picked the title as "va" rhymes with "Sarah". It definitely does not convey the same idea of work in progress that the original title contains (and it's a bit of a ridiculous title really).

Admittedly the "-ing" form is a nightmare to translate into French. You have to add quite a lot sometimes to get the same idea. Forgetting Sarah Marshall would be "En train d'oublier Sarah Marshall" ou "Oubliant Sarah Marshall" in a word by word translation. "Pendant que tu oublies Sarah Marshall" works too... Though a bit wordier. I have to admit that I really can't  find the perfect translation this time, and even the French Canadian title, which is very close (Oublie Sarah Marshall - Forget Sarah Marshall) and far superior to the French one lacks something that is very difficult to render back. 

But that's the gift and the curse of translation. And why so many try (barely?) and fail.