BEFORE: I had a chance to see "Silver Linings Playbook" last night, but I turned it down because it seems like a romantic film, and I'm not there yet, that's February's topic. But then my co-worker told me a little about the plot, and it seemed like there were some similar plot points to "Our Idiot Brother", so maybe I should have gone. Oh, well. Catch ya later. It would have disrupted my linking chain, anyway.
This time Paul Rudd carries over from "Our Idiot Brother".
THE PLOT: Rattled by sudden unemployment, a Manhattan couple surveys alternative living options, ultimately deciding to experiment with living on a rural commune where free love rules.
AFTER: Last night's film centered on a hipster/slacker, and tonight we've got genuine hippies - as in, live on a commune, eat vegan, free-love hippies. Because you might have thought that the lifestyle would have died out in the late 70's, but apparently not.
But I see this as kind of a lesson in character development. So many times in a movie you see a character who's just ONE thing, and then the rest of their story develops from that. Rarely in real life is anyone just one thing. People have hobbies and interests outside of their job, or outside of being a parent, but lazy screenwriters will make a character a baseball player, or an astronaut, or a mother, and expect the rest of the pieces to fall into place.
Most of the hippies seen in this film do fall into this category - the shorthand then dictates that they all smoke pot, practice free love, and generally act spacey. And the lead characters are yuppies (at first), so there's a quick extrapolation that they live in a Manhattan loft, drink gourmet coffee, etc. with the yuppie/hippie contrast then developed for comic effect.
But there are signs here of the "right" way to build a character - there's one who is an aspiring author (and he's NOT writing a story that turns into this film!), a wine-maker, and a nudist. None of these things preclude the others - so adding hobbies is a quick and legitimate way to develop a character. Paul Rudd's character in "Our Idiot Brother" had none, so right off the bat he's a lot less interesting - and Rudd's character here, what do we know about him, other than the fact that he lost his job and apartment? What did he do at his job? What are his life goals, his interests, his backstory? The worst kind of character development turns out to be none at all.
You might think I'm splitting hairs, but look at "Life of Pi". The central character is a bit more than just a kid who gets stuck on a lifeboat. He had interests in swimming, drumming, and comparative religion. And later in the film, at least two of those became very important. (I'm still trying to see how the story related to God, I guess you have to be more God-oriented to get it.) "Slumdog Millionaire" is another great example - the main character's knowledge base came from the sum total of his hobbies, interests and experiences.
Even the foil character in "Wanderlust", the brother, was more interesting - he runs a port-a-potty company, has affairs, is prone to fits of rage, and in general is a complete jerk. But he's more developed than either of the leads. Maybe I'm expecting too much from a little comedy, but the whole point of sending these two to the commune, creating a "fish out of water" storyline, is so that they can gain some perspective, see that there's another way of doing things, so even if they ultimately return to NYC, they should be changed somehow. But since they're mostly blanks, the "Where are they now" updates at the end felt very forced, and not developed naturally from within.
But hey, big picture, the film manages to skewer hippies, vegans, pacifists, nudists, and other liberal bastions. Any person with a philosophy, religion, or outlook that deals in absolutes, I'm happy to see them get caught up in their own B.S. Seeing a pacifist lose control in a fit of rage, or seeing a vegetarian sneak out to a diner for some bacon only proves my point. And there was some article a few months ago about a study that was done among the free-love/polyamory crowd that proved that, yes, often the people in these relationships experience jealousy. Surprising exactly no one, least of all myself.
So the humor takes aim at easy targets, but it's still funny, sort of in the way that "Wet Hot American Summer" poked fun at teenagers at camp. Some of the same people from that film were involved, including the director and many cast members of "The State". I didn't watch that MTV sketch show when it aired, because I had seen the group perform many of the same skits live at NYU - so I didn't know those people directly at college, but I knew who they were.
NITPICK POINT: It's comforting to know that there have been advances in the technology of wine-making in the past few decades. They have wine presses now. Stomping grapes with bare feet, while an iconic and allegedly fun activity, has 99.9% gone the way of the dinosaurs and licking stamps. It certainly would not be done today for any wine that people would want to drink. Because, eww.
Also starring Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "Friends With Money"), Justin Theroux (last seen in "Your Highness"), Alan Alda (last seen in "The Aviator"), Malin Akerman (last seen in "Couples Retreat"), Ken Marino (last seen in "Role Models"), Kerri Kenney (ditto), Joe Lo Truglio (last seen in "Paul"), Lauren Ambrose (last seen in "The Other Woman"), Kathryn Hahn (also carrying over from "Our Idiot Brother"), Jordan Peele, with cameos from Todd Barry, Keegan Michael Key, Linda Lavin, Michael Showalter (last seen in "Signs"), Michael Ian Black, David Wain.
RATING: 6 out of 10 didgeridoos
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