Good writing and nice people: A typical Paul Rudd comedy
The majority of comedies are about mean and obnoxious
people. The idea being that gleeful and aggressive shocks of violence and rude
behavior elicit laughs. And they do. Quite a lot of these movies are very
funny. But every once in a while it is a pleasure to see a comedy take the
opposite route and have the running joke be that the characters are too
trusting, lovable, and sweet. Or in Ned’s case (played by the funniest nice guy
in movies, Paul Rudd) all those characteristics to an idiotic degree.
What a good and compassionate heart Ned has. In the first
scene we see him happily running a biodynamic vegetable stall at the local
farmer’s market. He charges fair prices and lets little kids steal strawberries
with a smile. A uniformed cop walks up to him and asks for marijuana. Ned is
hesitant. The cop confides in Ned that it’s been a really rough week for him.
Ned, ever so trusting and empathetic, decides to give him a bag of marijuana on
the house. No, the cop insists, he wants to pay for it. Ned relents and gives a
price that must be a rather large discount for that amount of marijuana. The
cop pays and informs Ned that he is being arrested for selling drugs. It takes Ned
awhile to realize that the nice cop had been lying to him all along.
Ned is thrown in prison for eight months and is released
four months early for being “Most Cooperative Inmate” three months straight.
Outside he finds that he has lost his job, his girlfriend, his place to live,
and his much loved dog, Willie Nelson. The way he handles all this would make
Socrates, Thoreau, and Jeffrey Lebowski very proud. He even makes dudely peace
with his girlfriend’s new boyfriend, played here by the very funny T.J. Miller.
He drops by his mother’s house where there are still family dinners routinely
held. Around the table are his three sisters. One is Emily Mortimer, a wife and
mother to an oily Steve Coogan and ten-year-old Dillon respectively. Another is
Elizabeth Banks, a hard-working journalist on the verge of a career-making
story. Finally there is Zooey Deschanel, a stand-up comedian currently engaged
to Rashida Jones, a hipster lawyer with a must-mention sense of style. This is
a very good cast. Most of them have worked together before and it has a way of
showing. Elizabeth Banks was Rudd’s opposite in “Role Models” and Rashida Jones
was Rudd’s opposite in “I Love You, Man.” Those movies too were very nice and
funny comedies about good people. You can put this one up there with them. Good
writing and nice people. I think it can be said that Paul Rudd is developing a
solid reputation for these types of movies.
From there on, Ned couch surfs from home to home causing
problems with his honesty and humility. Generally speaking, the problem already
exists but Ned has a way of bringing them out in the open because of how his
compassion and empathy (which makes him very easy to confide in) combines with
his complete inability to tell a lie and childlike belief that the truth brings
out the best in people. People tell him things he shouldn’t hear and he shares
things to others he isn’t supposed to tell. Soon Emily’s marriage to Steve
Coogan is on the rocks (as it should be because the guy is no good),
Elizabeth’s career is put in danger (as it should be because her employers are
telling her to do shady things), and Zooey’s relationship with Rashida is
endangered (as it should be because Zooey has a bad habit of infidelity). All
of this happens because of “our idiot brother.”
The first half of the movie is enjoyable but there were very
few laughs. The movie did pick up steam, however, as it went along and by the
end the laughs were big and numerous. The characters in general are so likable
that laughing becomes a very easy reaction to indulge in. I especially liked
the raid on the organic farm by Ned and Rashida Jones to steal back Willie
Nelson. It goes bad almost immediately and they don’t get the dog back, but
T.J. Miller is a really cool dude about the midnight trespassing and all. He
even goes so far as to sort of apologize for not giving Ned the right
information for when him and the girlfriend would be out of town to see a Dixie
Chicks concert. “Next Thursday” apparently in Miller’s mind means every
Thursday down the road that isn’t “this Thursday.” Ned kindly informs him that
for future reference he should say “Next Next Thursday” if he means the
Thursday after next. Sorry Dude, my bad. That’s totally okay, Dude, sorry for
the trespassing. The movie did miss an opportunity in its underutilization of
Zooey Deschanel though. This is an actress I have seen being truly hilarious
before (The Good Girl, (500) Days of
Summer). In this movie she plays a stand-up comedian. It would have been
funny if she had a decent act that made people laugh or something.
Is Ned truly an idiot? The sisters treat Ned with that
special kind of passive aggressive disdain women reserve for honest and humble
men. Ned isn’t really an adult in their eyes. Ned tolerates this not only
because he has to in that he is sleeping on their couches but also because he
loves his family and understands their various problems. There is a very
telling scene where Ned finally gets angry. Here is a man who was unjustly sent
to prison via an act of compassion, lost his job, his home, his girlfriend, and
essentially the respect and dignity in the eyes of his family. Does this make
him bitter? No, he is still a good person, tries to do better, and spends much
of the movie apologizing to those who are unfairly pissed off at him. What does
he get angry about? He gets angry when on family night his sisters essentially
ruin a game of charades. They break the rules, won’t have fun, and treat the
concept of a family game as a stupid waste of time. It is easy to roll one’s eyes
and claim that this is an idiotic thing to get angry about. Or one could
perhaps reflect on their priorities in life.
One more thing, and I say this with but the expertise of a
person who has seen an almost ridiculous amount of movies. Movies do not glamorize
drugs, at least not the good ones. I have seen people drink themselves to death
(Leaving Las Vegas), I have seen
people ruin their lives with heroin (The
Wire, Requiem for a Dream, Basketball
Diaries), I have seen people make ridiculously bad decisions while on
cocaine (Goodfelllas, Casino, Scarface,
Boogie Nights, Bad Lieutenant). I have seen drug overdoses aplenty (Pulp Fiction, Traffic, Trainspotting, SLC Punk). Not once have I seen the movie
where somebody smoked marijuana, became addicted, overdosed, or routinely went
about their self-destruction. I think the worst I have seen was the case in
Dave Chappelle’s Half Baked where one
of the characters literally smoked himself retarded. True I have seen potheads
that are lazy and stupid, but being lazy and stupid is not a crime and here is
the point I want to make. We don’t need to be wasting the police’s time and the
taxpayer’s money putting people like Ned behind prison bars. It has been argued
that marijuana may lead to heavier drugs and more criminal behavior. You can
say the same about losing your job, your girlfriend, and your home, which has a
tendency to happen when someone gets thrown in prison. The problem isn’t being
solved. Thank God that in this movie, Ned had a good family to fall back on. I
think we must remember that there is a difference between behavior that is
morally objectionable and behavior that is criminal. It can definitely be said
that it would be better for the smoker or drinker to exercise prudence and
refrain from intoxicants. But it must also be understood that indulging in
mind-altering substances is a universal thing amongst human beings as a species.
Basically every religion on the face of the planet has some kind of drug that
they use in their functions or tolerate in society. It is a truth that people
in general have rough weeks and look for a chance to escape every now and then.
When this is made a crime, there will be a ludicrous amount of people behind
bars that otherwise could be functioning productive citizens (ex. the United
States of America). Drugs use is a very serious thing and those that are
addictive, manipulative, and dangerous should be illegal. Marijuana is not one
of those. If you would like to know exactly what it does, please read Michael
Pollan’s “The Botany of Desire.” Of course, like anything else, marijuana may
be abused. But that is a problem that should be dealt with by a family, a
church, a support group, or a community. Using lawyers, courts, prisons, and
parole officers to solve such a problem is akin to swatting flies with a
baseball bat. You’re bound to cause far more damage than if you did nothing at
all.
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