ViewGuide

Created Mar 04, 2012 12:45PM PST • Edited Jul 09, 2024 04:54PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Comedies get no respect, so perceptively intelligent movies like Wanderlust get discounted by the critics. Never mind that it’s continuously clever, even if only sporadically LOL.

   The LOLs do come however, some hitting various parts of the audience and some slaying everyone. When a Big One hits – say when Paul Rudd expansively proclaims to himself how he’s gonna do beauteous Malin Ackerman – there’s a serious risk that some people will pee their pants.

   Did I mention that Judd Apatow is the producer? (Like it had to be said given the Hard R raunch)

   Perceptively intelligent comedy? Wanderlust deftly parodies bright lights, big city yuppies and suburban Atlanta assholes in its first reel, like Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full that works. It then stoops to conquer the mellow Left, who get taken to the cleaners while managing to remain largely lovable the whole time.

   Don’t forget the marital comedy, which rarely scores this surely or funnily. When the cinematic history of 21st Century Married Couples gets written, Jennifer Aniston & Paul Rudd are gonna have pride of place. They’re the Hepburn & Tracy of a new generation.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Let’s hear it for Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston, raunchy RomCom performers extraordinaire.

   Aniston’s not as potty-mouthed here as in Horrible Bosses, but she’s still way off the Good Girl Reservation. Fortunately her innate likability follows her, not to mention her exquisite comedic timing.

   Rudd’s a wonder to behold, his trademark nice-guy shtick in fine form. The bathroom mirror soliloquy he delivers about how he’s gonna use his dick in 99 different ways on Malin Ackerman’s gorgeous bod is a RaunchCom classic.

   Their supporting cast is just as great, an essential success factor for a sketch comedy like Wanderlust.

   • Justin Theroux as a virile cult-leader who’s laughably stuck in the past. His character introduces Aniston’s to free love. They’re now an item in real life, or did they split? It’s hard to keep up.
   • Alan Alda as an aged hippy. The comedic master doesn’t deliver any LOLs, but he’s still a treat.
   • Malin Akerman as a golden goddess who’s into free love. Whoo-who!
   • Joe Lo Truglio as a blithely self-absorbed nudist. Watch out for the swinging dick.
   • Kathryn Hahn as an addled former pornstar.
   • Kerri Kenney as a boundary-free crustafarian.
   • Lauren Ambrose as a luminously pregnant Earth Mother.
   • Jordan Peele as her sweet-natured baby Daddy.
   • Linda Lavin as a smooth NYC real estate agent.
   • Ken Marino as a serially offensive Atlanta money-hog. Marino also cowrote the movie.
   • Michaela Watkins as his alcoholic wife.
   • John D’Leo as their laughably angry son.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Very funny: often hilarious with acceptably few clunkers. It’s also knowing in the extreme, confidently exploring the psyches of men and women, urbanites and hippies.

11. Direction Good 3.0

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 2.4

    Fatally dangerous situations get played for laughs, whether fighting for the wheel of a truck as it careens through a picnic or standing high in a tree after taking hallucinogens. “I can fly!” No, you can die.

    Oh yeah, sex and drugs and race are all grist for the comedy mill here. Go in with your laughing cap on.

17. Sex Titillating 2.3

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Profane 3.5

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.1

    Gotta hand it the Left: They know how to pierce their own bubble by lampooning their bleeding hearts.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.1

23. Biological Surreal 2.1

24. Physical Surreal 2.1