The trailer for Our Idiot Brother looked interesting, and Paul Rudd is usually a great actor. Unfortunately, the movie ended up being more of a dramedy (drama/comedy) than a comedy, which was sad because I was really in the mood to see a funny film.
Good-natured Ned (Paul Rudd, "Dinner for Schmucks") lives on a hippie farm of sorts with his girlfriend, Janet (Kathryn Hahn, "How Do You Know"), but is sent to jail when he sells some pot to a uniformed police officer (yes, really). When he gets out, Ned finds that Janet has a new boyfriend, so he is forced to move in with his mother, and later, when he gets sick of her, each of his three sisters. Ned is a big-hearted guy but tends to get people in trouble by telling the truth, and one by one, he makes a (negative) impact on each of his sisters' lives. He's family, though, so they can't turn him away ... but it's really, really hard for them to have him around.
Paul Rudd and his sisters (Zooey Deschanel, "Your Highness"; Elizabeth Banks, "The Next Three Days"; and Emily Mortimer, "Shutter Island," respectively) are great in their parts. I think the problem lies more within the script and its tendency to think it's funny when it's actually not. The story in the movie was interesting, and I was never bored during it, but we all know how the ending is going to turn out (semi-spoiler: "slacker pothead brother makes good") and although Paul Rudd is perfect for the role of Ned, a naive, kind man, he can't make the movie work on his own. The sisters' stories were varied and added a bit to the film, and how Ned fit into them, too, but it tended to segue into being a drama rather than a comedy.
Maybe see this film. If you like movies about families that are "slice of life"-type movies, then you might like Our Idiot Brother. I think I was expecting more out of it than I actually got, which is why I was so disappointed, but it had the potential to be a much better comedy than it actually was.
Our Idiot Brother is in theaters today, August 26th, and is rated R with a runtime of 90 minutes.
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Liz Parker is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan. She currently works as an Assistant Medical Editor for a pathology website. Visit her at her movie blog Yes/No Films
