Cedar Rapids

Not only is Cedar Rapids a very funny movie, but it's also a disarmingly sweet-natured one. A lot of this has to do with the lead performance from Ed Helms, an actor who's been working in films for a while, but got a lot of people's attention with The Hangover a couple years ago. (He was the dentist who lost one of his teeth.) Here, he proves that he's not only capable of carrying a movie on his own, but does so with plenty of laid back charm.

Helms plays Tim Lippe, an insurance agent from the small town of Brown Valley, Wisconsin. We get the sense early on that Tim's world pretty much ends at the border of Brown Valley, and whatever small town happens to be right next to it. When asked about his dreams for the future, he replies he's thinking of putting up a greenhouse in his backyard. It's not that he's dumb, Tim just thinks small. He doesn't see himself as anything special, and has never ventured far from home. The most exciting thing going on for him is that he's currently having a sexual relationship with his old middle school teacher whom he used to have a crush on (Sigourney Weaver). He sees it as true love. After all, it's his first sexual experience. She, on the other hand, is obviously keeping her options open. Not that he notices this.

Tim's real passion is his job, however. He views being an insurance agent almost like being a superhero, helping people in their time of need. This blinds him to the truth that a lot of the people he works with are either crooks, or lead scandalous lives, such as when the leading agent in his office dies in an embarrassing accident that reveals a secret fetish he's been hiding for years. The death of the fellow agent proves to be a window of opportunity for Tim. The boss (Stephen Root) wants Tim to take the guy's place, and go to a business convention in Cedar Rapids to win a prestigious award for the company. Leaving Brown Valley is an entirely new experience for Tim, and the movie has a lot of fun with how he responds to the generic hotel his company has put him up in - "The whole place smells like chlorine, it's incredible!", he says excitedly when he sees the pool. Heck, he's even excited that the guy he's sharing a room with is a black guy. That would be Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock, Jr), who is one of the people who participates in Tim's emotional and spiritual awakening during his time in Cedar Rapids.

Someone else who will help Tim live life for the first time is Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), a rival agent whom Tim's boss warns him about before he leaves on his trip, but Tim finds himself fascinated and lured into Dean's world of hard drinking, partying, and breaking the rules. There are also two women who enter his life - one a married insurance agent who's not against a romantic fling with Tim named Joan (Anne Heche, very good here), and the other is a young prostitute named Bree (Alia Shawkat), who hangs about outside the hotel where the convention is being held, looking for potential customers. I could picture a lesser movie playing up the oddities of all of these characters to ridiculous and obnoxious extremes, but the screenplay by Phil Johnson is smart in the way it respects these characters. These are smart people, not comic buffoons.

Cedar Rapids works as a comedy, as there are a number of laugh out loud moments throughout. But, it also caught me off guard in a way that I didn't expect - I started caring about these characters more than I thought I would when they were first introduced. While the movie doesn't really go for any deep insights, its smart dialogue and well-drawn characters help flesh them out. Tim starts the movie out as a stereotypical clueless nerd, but the movie's not mean in the way it treats him or even laughs at him in early scenes. And when he starts to stand up for himself, we like him all the more. He's not just funny, he's someone who begins to dream for himself for the first time in his life. The supporting cast all give strong efforts here, with Anne Heche standing out the most as the woman who connects with Tim during the trip. She not only gets some big laughs, but also some surprisingly sweet small moments with Helms.

There's a lot of charm here, as well as a lot of laughs. That alone puts Cedar Rapids above just about any other live action comedy released so far this year. I could also see it being a star-making vehicle for Helms. There is so much sweetness and vulnerability in his performance that you're drawn to him. Of course, whether or not it becomes a career highlight for him relies on the studio, which is oddly hiding this crowd pleasing film in a very limited release. I have no doubt audiences would react big to this smart and sweet adult comedy. I mean, the only other comedy playing right now that's as smart is Rango, and that's being targeted at kids.

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