OUR IDIOT BROTHER

Our Idiot Brother (2011)
Grade: B+
Starring: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Emily Mortimer, Zooey Deschanel, Adam Scott, Rashida Jones, Steve Coogan, Kathryn Hahn, Shirley Knight and T.J. Miller
PREMISE: A sweet-natured but naive man's family regrets showing loyalty to him when he wreaks havoc on their lives with his unhesitating honesty.

RATED R for strong language (including graphic sexual references), scenes of sexuality and nudity, and some drug content

--Let’s face it, the world would be a happier place if more people were like Ned Rochlin (Paul Rudd). Is he a part-time stoner? Yes. Can he accurately be described as an “irresponsible man-child”, as one character late in the hilariously-likable comedy Our Idiot Brother labels him? Yes. Is he a great influence for children? Not particularly. Is he clueless enough to get a wealthy heiress (Janet Montgomery) drunk, hear her spill all her secrets and casually repeat them to an ambitious journalist (Elizabeth Banks), yet honest enough to get an attack of conscience when he realizes the material is about to be published? Yes. And is he airheaded enough to walk in front of the camera his brother-in-law (Steve Coogan) is using to film a documentary in a ballet studio? Yes. But is he the sort of person you’d like to be friends with (excluding the drug use)? Yes.

As he tells that heiress in a moment of drunken sensitivity, he believes that dishing out enough love, kindness, and honesty might make people start giving those things back, paying it forward, making the world a better place. And so he does, for better or for worse.

Our Idiot Brother is a delightful film, a naughty but bighearted adult comedy that was exactly the uplifting tonic I needed after sitting through the sobering spectacles of 50/50 and Moneyball in the past two days. At its center is Ned, a thirtysomething slacker who’s never had a real job, is willing to pay $500 a month to live in his hippie ex-girlfriend’s goat barn, and whose best friend is his golden retriever, Willie Nelson (seriously). Part Forrest Gump, part Buddy the Elf, Ned has an idealistic view of the world, full of innocence and sympathy, which is why he doesn’t think twice about giving a uniformed police officer under-the-table weed from his produce stand early in the film when the officer claims he’s had a bad week. Ned understands how it is. Then he gets busted.

Eight months later, he’s out of jail, finds his girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) living with another guy and refusing to return his dog to him, so he runs back to that built-in support group every one of us has: family. But that family doesn’t particularly need him. His mother (Shirley Knight) is gentle and understanding, but Ned’s three sisters might be just fine without him. Miranda (Banks) is a feisty go-getter moving up the Vanity Fair ladder. Natalie (Zooey Deschanel) is a gay, part-time adult comedian who spends her time getting nude for a sensitive artist (Hugh Dancy, in a small part) and exchanging sweet nothings with her lawyer girlfriend (Rashida Jones). And Liz (Emily Mortimer) is raising a seven-year-old son and a five-month old and claims to be happy, but she’s really suffering through a loveless marriage with Coogan’s stuffy, high-class filmmaker, Dylan.

Well, the sisters do try to reach out to him. Ned begins living in Liz’s house, sharing bunkbeds with River, her seven-year-old, while “assisting” her husband with his film shoot during the day. And Miranda allows him a job as her chauffer/assistant, with no strings attached, of course. But things start falling apart fast. Being such a child, Ned bonds immediately with River, playing games and telling jokes, showing him old kung fu movies and teaching him the moves, but the parents won’t have it, considering Dylan has been raising the child with enrollment in prestigious private schools in mind, thereby forcing him toward quieter, more artistic habits. Ned also butchers Miranda’s attempt at a juicy column on the heiress by being such a good listener, by being so interesting--so delighted is the heiress to have a nice guy like him around, she barely hears Miranda’s interview questions. Ned even gets dehydrated and passes out in the middle of an aromatheraphy session he attends with Natalie and her artist friend, Christian.

Like all movies based on a fish-out-of-water scenario, Our Idiot Brother can make you squirm. Ned is about as nice a guy as you’ll find, just hopelessly naïve. He totally buys it when Dylan tells him he personally gets naked for one-on-one interviews with the ballerina star of his film (to make her feel more comfortable) after Ned walks in to find them in a compromising position. He believes a pregnant Natalie when she tells him she told her girlfriend about the attached infidelity, and feels a desire to congratulate the perfectly-happy girlfriend on taking the news so well. And he feels horrible when he finds himself too weirded-out to finish up a threesome with an interested couple he meets a party at Natalie’s place. And he just can’t keep his mouth shut, inadvertently spilling the beans about what the bossy Miranda and her starry-eyed, nerdy neighbor (Adam Scott) really think of each other, not to mention matter-of-factly mentioning Dylan’s interview “practice”. Soon enough, of course, that family is ready to show Ned the door.

The actors all make effective contributions. Rudd strikes just the right balance between irresponsible goofball and likable idealist, allowing you to accept him without making fun of him. He does register as a person-if an extremely gullible one-rather than a plot device (who, out there, can't relate to someone who wants to repeatedly stick their foot in their mouth when seemingly-harmless comments come back to bite them?), and his cluelessness really put you on edge in a number of no-don't-do-it suspense scenes.

Banks is dynamite, looking great and devouring the scenery with gusto as the tightly-wound, sharp-tongued Miranda. You can tell her slacker brother puts a cramp in her style, but she's willing to put up with him so long as he's useful to her. Mortimer excels at the Emily Mortimer role, a meek but friendly gal whose liveliness has been buried by her husband’s perceived superiority, yet who still has it in her to think for herself. Deschanel, the sister with the least screen time, nails the understated humor of an easygoing gal who's be-who-you-are, do-what-you-want style is just a few notches above Ned's on the leniency scale; she also has a super-expressive face that's key for a few big argument scenes. Coogan is easy to hate as the sleazy jerk husband, Jones brings a few big laughs as the more macho half of the lesbian couple, and Kathryn Hahn and T. J. Miller provide easy laughs as Ned’s ex, and her new boyfriend, a dry, unsophisticated bro.

The movie is well-paced but impressively-complex for a comedy—I just wrote three paragraphs of plot and could easily write a good two more without giving away everything. Really, it felt longer than ninety minutes, but nearly every moment seems to belong, includes Ned’s repeated visits to his parole officer (Sterling K. Brown)--Ned thinks parole visits are kind of like “free therapy”—and it leaves you smiling with a hopeful little climax. It also strikes just the right tone. Whereas 50/50 was a comedy that drowned its middle section in depressingly gritty material supplemented by mere, occasional touches of humor, Brother keeps the laughs and humorous edginess coming, while effectively hitting all its dramatic plot points. Is it the most original movie ever? Of course not, but it was nice to see something like this done as a comedy, when it’s all-too-easy to picture this family-black-sheep-comes-home scenario as a heavy drama.

So, do I recommend it?
Ah, that’s a tough one! I just wrote a review lavishing affection on it, but it’s still hard to unhesitatingly recommend a movie with so much adult material. If you and your adult family can handle mature material (lots of profanity, a homosexual relationship, and a few instances of nudity), you’ll probably laugh your heads off and end up smiling and hugging each other. If not, stay far away from Our Idiot Brother.

Bottom line (I promise):
A great cast pulls off a cliché but well-executed premise with aplomb in this raunchy feel-good comedy that isn't for everyone but should satisfy those who watch it.

Our Idiot Brother (2011)
Directed by Jesse Peretz
Written by Jesse Peretz, Evgenia Peretz, and David Schisgall
Rated R for strong language (including graphic sexual references), scenes of sexuality and nudity, and some drug content
Length: 90 minutes