This Is 40 is a 2012 American romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Judd Apatow and starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.

A "sort-of sequel" to Apatow's film Knocked Up, its plot centers on married couple Pete and Debbie, whose stressful relationship is compounded by each turning 40.

After speaking with her friends Jason and Barb, Debbie decides to improve her marriage and family through exercise and strengthening her relationship with her father.

Debbie takes Desi out dancing at a club, planning to confront her with her suspicions that she has been stealing money from the store.

Pete and Debbie deal with Sadie and Charlotte's constant fighting, which puts an additional strain upon the family.

[4] After the main credits roll, there's an extended alternate take of Catherine's ad-libbing insults during the meeting with Debbie, Pete, and the school principal.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Judd Apatow definitely delivers funny and perceptive scenes in This Is 40, even if they are buried in aimless self-indulgence.

"This Is 40 is a comedy film about the hell of getting older in a place where aging naturally is the last taboo, and I only wish it lived up to that utterly inspired concept...every scene feels like an airbrushed composite of dozens of rambling takes, and 133 minutes is drainingly long for a story this sitcom-slight," he wrote.

Rudd and Mann are a joy to watch, especially when their comic darts draw blood, as when Debbie tells "charmboy" Pete that inside he's a dick.

Yet Pete and Debbie's sparring yields some of Apatow's most personal observations yet on the feelings for husbands, wives, parents, and children that we categorize as love.

"This Is 40 has its share of clever, zingy material, proving that writer-director Judd Apatow has lost none of his ability to land a punch line with the right, unexpected turn of phrase.

But it's easy, and sort of lazy, to establish jokes and entire scenes built upon mocking somebody's dialect, or the older daughter's obsession with Lost.

Director Judd Apatow stated he is interested in a possible sequel, shifting the focus off married couple Pete and Debbie and moving it onto their budding teenage daughter Sadie.

[27] In March 2022, it was reported Apatow was in early development of writing a script, with the film set ten years after the previous, titled This is 50.