Serious Adam Sandler returns in the trailer for Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children

By William Hughes | August 19, 2014 | 4:14pm

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Judging from the trailer, Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children appears to be a movie about people being very sad while looking at phones. The writer-director of Thank You For Smoking and Up In The Air adapted the film from Chad Kultgen’s 2011 novel about the Internet’s impact on America’s sexual and emotional culture. It follows Jennifer Garner, Emma Thompson, Ansel Elgort, and the rest of a large ensemble cast as they text, sext, and mournfully Tumblr their way through modern life.

Notably, it also features a performance from the reclusive and semi-obscure Serious Adam Sandler, who hasn’t been seen since 2009’s Funny People. Cursed by an ancient sorcerer to have access to his considerable talents for expressing self-loathing, simmering rage, and despair only when more than 500 miles from Kevin James or David Spade, Serious Adam Sandler appears in here as a father and husband who’s wrestling with the changes Internet culture has wrought on his family and his sex life.