For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Our Idiot Brother
The Impression:
There were fair to middling reviews coming off the festival
circuit about this one, but because of my ardent love of all
things Paul Rudd, I deigned it worthy for my holy eyes.
The Reality:
Our Idiot Brother is as affably good-natured as its
moronic titular character. It’s so nice and so damn pleasant
that it never knows if its a dick-joke comedy or a sincere
family film. And its lack of identity hamstrings it. Paul
Rudd plays Ned, the kind of happy-go-lucky life trusting
human being you imagine only lives on the suburban streets
of the Midwest, and the reclusive organic farms of upstate
New York. Busted for selling weed to a uniformed officer (a
set-up which gets one of the better lines of the movie) Ned
is forced back in to the lives of his three, well, drifting
sisters. It’s a trio of cliches - the slutty one (Zooey
Deschanel), the amoral business one (Elizabeth Banks), and
the harried family one (Emily Mortimer) - but the actors
involved are of a high order and each is able to give some
backbone to the stick figures offered them. Unfortunately
Our Idiot Brother plays like a joke about overly earnest
films. Sure, there’s dick and fart jokes and Paul Rudd talks
about getting high a lot, but as the film wrapped, I felt
bamboozled because this wasn’t a crass comedy, this was a
family film dolled up with dirty magazines as wrapping
paper. I chuckled and laughed and generally enjoyed myself
but as loose end after loose end after loose end starts to
wrap up and the three sisters and Ned started learning some
life lessons the film takes a steep dive in to television
territory. I will say the film never becomes bad or
unwatchable but it just sort of bounces along like Ned, a
man too nice for his own good, swathed in weed smoke, just
happy to be on screen.
The Lesson:
I like my dick jokes in the context of cynicism and
darkness, not cheer and sunshine.
- Noah Sanders
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