Wanderlust

The opening half hour of Wanderlust filled me with hope. I was laughing out loud, I was smiling, and I was enjoying the two lead performances. I settled in, confident that the movie was going to keep on the path it was going. But then, little by little, that confidence faded. While not a total loss, the movie seems to run out of gas just when it reaches its point. The set up is the most promising part. It's all downhill from there.

At least the lead performances remain enjoyable throughout. Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston play George and Linda, a married Manhattan couple who sink all of their money into a "micro-loft" apartment, which is a fancy way of saying it's an overpriced tiny room with a fold out bed. Still, the couple are confident they can pay for their lifestyle. After all, George is a successful businessman, and Linda is a documentary filmmaker who's latest film (a depressing nature film about penguins with cancer) is almost certain to be picked up by HBO. Alas, things don't work out. George loses his job when his boss becomes the focus of an FBI investigation, and Linda's documentary isn't picked up. They're forced to sell their apartment at a loss, move to Atlanta, and live with George's obnoxious brother (the film's co-writer, Ken Marino).

On their way to the brother's home, George and Linda find what they initially think is a bed and breakfast, only for it to turn out to be a modern day hippie community built around the ideas of free love, living off the land, and non-violence. The leader of the commune is a long-haired, bearded spiritualist named Seth (Justin Theroux), who entices the couple with talk of love and freedom. When life with George's brother turns out to be an endless series of insults and misery, George decides that they should just leave modern life behind, and live on the commune. Linda is initially hesitant about the idea, but soon begins to embrace the alternative culture, to the point that she starts staging naked protest rallies when big corporations come, threatening to build a casino on the commune's land. As for George, he quickly begins to regret his decision, and becomes increasingly frustrated by the modern day hippies and nudists who now surround him.

Wanderlust aims to satirize different forms of life, from the hectic city rat race, to the suburban "mcmansions", and yes, the free-spirited modern day communes. But all of its jokes lie mainly on the surface. There's no deep, cutting humor that we expect. But what surprised me the most, especially considering that this is a Judd Apatow production, is that there is absolutely no heart in the movie. Apatow has made a name of himself with a series of "romantic comedies for guys" with movies like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. And yet, the romantic angle we expect isn't that strong. The relationship between George and Linda never builds into anything we can care about, despite the obvious chemistry between Rudd and Aniston. Even when their relationship is threatened in the third act, it feels more like a plot contrivance, rather than something we can concern ourselves about.

This is a likable enough comedy, and it never offends. But it just feels so safe and by the numbers. Nothing is surprising, not even the frequent full frontal nudity shots the movie throws at us strictly for shock value. The movie's rating states that it has been rated R for "graphic nudity". Trust me, the MPAA makes it sound more exciting than it is. This is a tame and sanitized little comedy, when it should be raw. This movie needed more manic energy, the kind that's often displayed in the performance by Justin Theroux. His character of Seth has an intensity that the rest of the film lacks. Everybody else is pleasant enough (including Rudd, Aniston, and Alan Alda turning up as the original founder of the commune), but don't get to break free or do anything memorable. Instead, we get a lot of mugging, which I suspected was improvised. I was proven right by the outtakes that play over the end credits, where we get to see alternate takes of certain scenes.

I really wanted to like Wanderlust. I walked in with high spirits, and the early scenes only strengthened them. But the movie just deflates and goes limp. It never quite becomes a chore to watch, but I couldn't help but wonder why this movie seems to run out of gas at only the 30 minute mark. Maybe co-writer and director, David Wain (Role Models), ran out of ideas. All I do know is that after a very promising start, the only question that was going through my mind was "what happened"?

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