Wanderlust (4/5 Stars)

This can't be the place

“There is a reason that human beings long for a sense of permanence. This longing is not limited to children, for it touches the profoundest aspects of our existence: that life is short, fraught with uncertainty, and sometimes tragic. We know not where we come from, still less where we are going, and to keep from going crazy while we are here, we want to feel that we truly belong to a specific part of the world.”

-       James Howard Kunstler, The Geography of Nowhere

The ending of “Wanderlust” is a cliffhanger, although I suspect most people (and perhaps even the filmmakers) will not realize how. The story itself follows a married couple named George and Linda (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) as they search for a home that is “real,” for lack of a better word. They start out in Manhattan, a place that demands endless toil to make barely enough money for a sizable mortgage on a very small studio apartment. When George loses his job during a massive corporate layoff, the city unceremoniously ships them out in favor of richer people.

George and Linda move down to Atlanta to live with Rudd’s boorish brother Rick, played by co-writer Ken Marino. Rick is the CEO of a port-o-potty company and lives in a McMansion out in a suburban nowhere. The house may be huge and filled to the brim with really expensive stuff, but the desperate housewife Marissa, played by Michaela Watkins, soon reveals that she spends most of her day alone and drinking margaritas. She has a theory that if she smiles enough it can brainwash her mind into feeling happy.

George and Linda escape to stumble upon a commune out in the middle of the woods. It is filled with colorful characters that smoke pot, grow organic vegetables, and share everything. At first this lifestyle is infatuating but it soon wears off because of the complete lack of privacy (there are no doors to the bedrooms or bathrooms), the annoying veganism, and the free love atmosphere that basically acts as a masquerade for Seth, the leader of the commune, played here by Justin Theroux, to hit on all the women that move in.

So that place does not really work out either. But the movie does end on a happy note with the characters getting new jobs and moving into a new place with happy music all over the background. The place is bigger and friendlier than the Manhattan studio, not as fake and isolated as the McMansion, and has actual doors. But where is this “real” place? We are never actually told. Is it anywhere in America? Because seriously, I think most of us would like to live there. It does exist somewhere, right?

The ambiguity of the ending of “Wanderlust,” is what stops the movie from achieving great movie status like director David Wain’s last Paul Rudd movie, “Role Models.” The special thing about “Role Models” is that behind all the jokes about the nerdiness and weirdness of the Dungeons and Dragons community known as LAIRE, there was a sincerity that held up the group as very creative and really fun to be in. Taking part in that community redeemed the cynical Paul Rudd character in the end. That cannot be said about the bohemian commune in “Wanderlust,” as they are shown to fall into the same hypocritical and selfish habits of all people no matter how vehemently they claim that it is not allowed there. The ending is a bit of a deux ex machina, a miracle that basically saves everyone from dealing with the main problem of the movie by making them all too rich and successful to care anymore. So this is not as satisfying as “Role Models.” But it is basically just as funny and employs just as large an ensemble of great comedic characters.

You’ve seen these actors before if you saw “Role Models.” Coming back in supporting roles are Kerri Kenney and Jordan Peele as the some of the hippies. The incomparable Joe Lo Truglio once again performs the feat of creating a complete character within thirty seconds of screen time. He is the commune’s nudist/winemaker/novelist. I suspect the reason why I found the ending forgivable is because it is this guy’s miracle. Joe Lo Truglio seems to be the kind of guy who could pull that off.

(It should be noted that creative freedom for full male frontal nudity has finally been achieved in this movie. When I saw this sort of thing in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” it still seemed like they were still trying to hide it by quickly cutting away. In this one, there are no quick cuts, and for some weird reason the fact that the movie does not seem to be afraid to have little Joe Lo Truglio just hanging out there for extended periods of time actually makes the whole thing less distracting.)

Then finally there is Ken Marino who reprises his role as a very funny asshole. He is joined this time by Michaela Watkins, an old (she’s 40) newcomer on the comedy scene. The comedic dynamic that these two create is the sort of thing that makes you wish the movie visited the McMansion more often. Watkins in particular is very very funny. You may remember her brief one year tenure as a featured played on Saturday Night Live, where she was funny in basically every scene she was in and then was inexplicably fired the next summer. I am glad she is now popping up in feature movies, but really, someone who cares about comedy ought to see this movie and start granting her more screen time doing anything in any other movie. She is the real thing and talent is a-being wasted while Eddie Murphy still gets to make a horrible movie every single year.

As far as Paul Rudd is concerned, he continues his now five year string of anchoring at least one good comedy in a year. (Wanderlust, Our Idiot Brother, Dinner for Schmucks, I Love You Man, Role Models.) That’s a good streak and he is a very good leading man for comedies. His humor is nice, subtle, and normal. This enables the plenty of wacky other characters around him to be crazy and all he has to do is twitch his face the correct way to round out the scene.

I still do not know what to make of Jennifer Aniston as a comedian. She has been in some great comedies and done some very good work (Office Space, The Good Girl, and Horrible Bosses), but she has also been in a string of really bad not funny movies. Oftentimes her characters lack the eccentricity needed to be funny and spend most of their time looking out of place while everybody else gets laughs. There is a part in this movie where the movie stops being a story about a couple and starts being a movie about Paul Rudd. Were missing something here. There has got to be a better way to make Aniston interesting besides having her take her top off, especially since it is blurred out anyway. Back to the drawing board on that one. Learn a thing or two from Michaela Watkins and Kristin Wiig on how to make women funny. Here is a link to one of their SNL skits for educational purposes.  http://www.hulu.com/watch/56640/saturday-night-live-today-show

Role Models 11/08/08

Role Models is a successfully funny comedy about two friends, Wheeler (Sean William Scott) and Paul Rudd, who work at a Red Bull-like energy drink company called Minotaur. Their job is to around to high school campuses pitching the green poison with the slogan "Say no to drugs, and Yes! to Minotaur!" (I sure hope this isn't based off of real life.) Paul Rudd hates his job (which he should) and is depressed about his life. Wheeler loves his job, (which he shouldn't) and is way to happy to enjoy prancing around in a Minotaur suit at his age. Rudd, in an act of desperation, proposes to his long time girlfriend. She sensibly dumps him. He goes into a tailspin of anger, disillusionment, and despair. He follows the great movie tradition of doing it in front of a large group of impressionable children. A couple of my favorites variations on that theme are Billy Crystal's monologue in 'City Slickers' and Billy Bob Thornton drunken fight with a fake reindeer in 'Bad Santa'. Long story short the duo finds themselves faced with a month of jail time or 150 hours of community service. They choose the lesser of two evils and get involved in a big brother organization named 'Sturdy Wings.' Paul Rudd is assigned a super nerd named Augie, played by Christopher Minz-Plasse ('McLovin' of Superbad fame) who spends his days in a fantasy role-playing game named LAIRE. Wheeler is assigned to Bobby, a fatherless child of 10 with an aggressive mouth and wild demeanor. The two match-ups provide good arcs for both characters. Rudd in an attempt to guide Augie into manhood becomes more of a kid. Wheeler in an attempt to tame Bobby grows up. This is all accomplished in good fun, clever dialogue, and a few outrageous scenes. Providing solid supporting work as a the leader of 'Sturdy Wings' is a reformed coke whore played by the beloved Jane Lynch. It really is one of those roles that only she can pull off. (Well maybe Whoopi Goldberg) She repeatedly mentions her very sordid past and yet still has a commanding sense of moral authority. At the same time she is consistently funny. I wouldn't be surprised if Lynch had completely improvised three quarters of her lines. 
Wheeler's storyline is good, but the real meat of the movie lies in Paul Rudd's relationship with Augie. The context for this storyline is much more intricate. We spend a great deal of time in the world of LAIRE, a game that although being super nerdy really grows on you after awhile. In time Rudd, like us, learns to understand that it really isn't all that bad. The people Augie hangs out with are somewhat deluded yes but they aren't creepy. Joe Lo Truglio (long a staple cameo in Apatow films like 'Pineapple Express,' and 'Superbad,') gets his first substantial supporting role as Fuzzik, a man who is so into LAIRE that he never ceases to talk in loud oratory Medieval speak. I can only imagine how fun it was on the set when he pontificated all his scenes. Everyone in LAIRE is participating in a mass hysteria and it is done with such joy of performance that the entire idea of dressing up like knights to fake battle in the local park is forgivable. Paul Rudd (and us) slowly come around to this and little by little he drop his shell of cynicism. 
Then come a couple of scenes that make this good comedy, somewhat great. Augie, not surprisingly, is ridiculed and made fun of. The most painful scene involves his well-meaning parents that constantly berate him about LAIRE. This is where Paul Rudd's performance really transcends the genre. It's the sort of scene that should get him a Golden Globe nomination. Rudd defends Augie by going so far as to tell his parents that they are wrong about their own son. What does he say to Augie: "Do what makes you happy." and to his parents: "I would be psyched if he was my kid." Christopher Minze-Plasse's reaction to all of this is perfect. It hits just the correct note and is very close to real life. 
The last part of the movie takes place in a grand make believe battle royale in LAIRE land. The swordplay was choreographed by the guy who did the fight scenes in 'Bourne Ultimatum.' The last battle is between Augie and the king of the battlefield (you might remember him as the doctor from 'Knocked Up') who had picked on him earlier. It is an incredibly entertaining, suspenseful, and satisfying ending to the story.
Like all good comedies, 'Role Models' gives us good reasons to care about the characters. And like all great comedies the makers spend this emotional capital to bring us down only to shoot us even higher. This is what I call a comedy's daredevil jump. The deeper emotionally the story gets the bigger the jump. The story's payoff is the landing. The longer the jump the more spectacular the landing or crash. The greatest jump I've ever seen landed was in 'Little Miss Sunshine.' Other notables that I can think of right now are 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' 'There's Something about Mary' 'Hamlet 2' and 'American Pie.' Good comedies take jumps. Great comedies land them. This one does both.