George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston) are house-hunting in Manhattan. An estate agent is trying to sell them a studio apartment, though she calls it a “micro-loft”. The estate agent is a middle-aged woman. She seems cynical, no-nonsense, somewhat crabby. She looks a bit impatient as the couple hem and haw, unsure if they can afford it. “Does your husband do this too?” asks Linda light-heartedly, trying to defuse the situation. “My husband is blind,” replies the estate agent soberly – then suddenly launches into a lyrical speech on how he might be blind but he can still smell the Chanel No. 5 on her neck, and when it comes to touch … well, she can set him off with a flick of her finger. The estate agent (whom we won’t see again, except very briefly at the end) is now a character.
That’s part of the fun in David Wain comedies, at least those I’ve seen (most of his work has been in American TV). Wain made Role Models, a hilarious film where the most hilarious part was a minor character, the reformed ex-junkie played by Jane Lynch (“You know what I had for breakfast? Cocaine…”) – and Wanderlust too teems with seemingly generic minor characters who turn out to be zany, bizarre and/or unreasonably annoying, like the everyday pests in W.C. Fields movies. “If you’re George, then where’s John, Paul and Ringo?” quips one lady, having shown our weary heroes to their motel room – then waits, smiling meaningfully, as if expecting a response to this ludicrous witticism. “I’m a nudist,” notes another fellow, stating the blatantly obvious. “Oh yes, we noticed your penis earlier,” replies George politely.
Wanderlust, like Role Models, is lucky to have Rudd, a good-natured sponge who can mop up any amount of annoyance – though in fact he goes through a complicated arc, initially in love with Elysium but increasingly irate and disillusioned. Elysium is the hippy commune where the couple wind up, having lost their New York job, life and micro-loft – and at first it seems idyllic but (as in The Beach 12 years ago, though much more hilariously) it turns out there are tensions beneath the surface. If the film were political it might actually be quite right-wing, positing competition – the lifeblood of free-market capitalism – as a vital part of human nature. George thinks Elysium is all about being carefree and strumming your guitar – and so it is, at least till someone else plays guitar better than you and caveman instincts take over.
But the film isn’t political; it’s bright, inventive and once or twice brilliant, as in a dream sequence where a giant fly (!) sidles up to George, sipping a cup of java, and informs him that it’s just had its way with his wife in the next room. Then there’s the natural childbirth scene (“I’m opening up like a lotus flower!”), the “truth circle” and “primal gesticulating”, the HBO meeting where Linda tries (unsuccessfully) to pitch a documentary about penguins with testicular cancer – and of course the mirror scene, a self-indulgent schtick (caveat emptor: the film was produced by Judd Apatow) that’s nonetheless, for better or worse, unforgettable.
Comedy’s subjective, of course. Few things are more disheartening than sitting in a theatre full of people laughing their heads off at jokes that make you cringe (I suspect a scene with George on the toilet will elicit disproportionate mirth, though I’d love to be proved wrong). Still, some things can be said with certainty about Wanderlust. Jennifer Aniston continues her comeback, brimming with comic joie de vivre after similarly perky turns in The Switch and Horrible Bosses. Hippy idealism, though inevitably falling short of its promise, isn’t mocked per se (at least not harshly). And of course minor characters are often the funniest, especially Michaela Watkins as an unhappy wife guzzling margaritas (“If you smile all the time, you can trick your brain into thinking you’re happy”). The nudist author makes an unconvincing deus ex machina, but the appearance of ‘Janice Woo’ – a character we don’t even know – is strangely heartwarming. Oh, and the estate agent comes back as well. Turns out her blind hubby is under the impression that she’s black. You have to laugh, don’t you?
DIRECTED BY David Wain
STARRING Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston,
US 2011 115 mins
