I watched both the regular and the "red band" (R-rated) trailers for Wanderlust before the screening, but the movie was even raunchier than its trailers led me to believe it would be. Most of the time the jokes in it were pretty funny, though, and the audience was laughing throughout the film. Although the movie held my interest for most of its runtime, there were a few scenes where it unfortunately slowed down a bit, too.
George (Paul Rudd, Our Idiot Brother) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston, Horrible Bosses) are Manhattanites who have just bought their very own "microloft" (aka, studio apartment) in the West Village. Linda is still "trying to find her major," as George puts it, but currently she has made a documentary about penguins with cancer, which she is trying to pitch to HBO. George works in an apparently corrupt office, as one day the FBI brings his boss outside in handcuffs; George, therefore, needs a new job. When Linda's documentary doesn't sell either, they decide to sell their apartment and move to Atlanta to live with George's moronic brother (Ken Marino, TV's Childrens Hospital) and his wife, and George will work for him until they are back on their feet.
On the way down to Atlanta, they stop at the Elysium Bed and Breakfast for a night, and they meet a host of crazy characters, while at the same time having one of their best nights in recent memory. When things with George's brother don't work out, they come back to Elysium, and agree to stay there for two weeks to see if they like it.
Jennifer Aniston's real-life boyfriend, Justin Theroux (Your Highness), is one of the Elysium residents, which also include Alan Alda (Tower Heist) as the its founder; Malin Akerman (The Bang Bang Club) as a woman who believes in "free love"; and Joe Lo Truglio (TV's Backwash), as a nudist, among others. The Elysium cast definitely fits the "hippie" stereotype, but George and Linda are surprised to find out that they fit in very well with them - at least at first.
Maybe see this film. It had a lot of hilariousness in it, but it was also very, very raunchy, which isn't everyone's "cup of tea"; a memorable scene near the end includes the guests at a nudist wine convention running down a hill, away from a car. Some of the jokes were a little over the top but a lot of these were funny as well. Rudd and Aniston are a good pair here, and so are the commune dwellers, and Rudd's brother and his wife (who are rich, but basically hate each other) made for a nice subplot. It will be interesting to see how other critics and audiences rate Wanderlust, as the script was overall sound but it did have a few slow parts throughout it.
Wanderlust is in theaters now and is rated R with a runtime of 98 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
