Movie Review: Wanderlust

Posted by Charmaine Blake on Mar 2nd, 2012 in Comedy, New Releases, Romantic Comedy | 0 comments

Movie Review: Wanderlust

Wanderlust came to theaters last February 24th 2012 and gave tons of laughter to people all over the world. This romcom features Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston in the shoes of two power couples who had to make a different turn in their lives. So how did critics and movie fans receive Wanderlust? Let’s take a look at David Jenkins’ review on the romantic comedy “Wanderlust”

David Wain Proves Himself A Comic Director In The Movie Wanderlust

“ On the combined evidence of the delightful Wanderlust and 2008’s boy’s own D&D misadventure, Role Models, American comedy director David Wain is a man who is clearly up with people. Conversely, he seems to despise systems, laws, rules, idle conformity, running with the pack and those who make decisions to please other people at the expense of pleasing themselves.

As it envisions a idyllic rural microcosm in which a group of people haplessly erode the hemp, muslin and free-love principles of 1970s-style communal living, Wanderlust comes across as a sweet and gratifyingly uncynical American retort to a film like Lars von Trier’s The Idiots.

Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston play George and Linda, a pair of beautiful, zeitgeist-clasping New Yorkers whose hip new “micro loft” is cruelly repossessed when he loses his job in the financial sector and her documentary on penguins with testicular cancer gets rejected by HBO.

Penniless and en route to his moron, braggadocio brother (Ken Marino, pushing the suburban psychotic schtick to dangerously combustible levels) in prefab Atlanta, the couple innocently happen across Elysium, a roadside commune (or, “intentional community” as its predictably eccentric inhabitants describe it) and decide – what the hey! – they’ll stay the night.

In basic terms, Wanderlust is a regulation fish-out-of-water tale, as George and Linda have their preconceptions of contemporary urban living at first questioned and then irrevocably altered as they come to understand that life can be lived without, say, a toilet door.

Yet their lifestyle conversion is not a total success, as George’s initial willingness to share in the bong hits and Didgeridoo solos soon fades while Linda – initially repulsed and scared – realises that she may have found her neo-hippy metier.

Wain employs a well-oiled ensemble to great effect, though it’s the male characters who are often bestowed with hidden depths (Alan Alda as doddery oldster, Justin Theroux as egregious poet warrior, Joe Lo Truglio as nudist winemaker and writer of political potboilers) while the females are left to drum a single, albeit funny note (Malin Akerman as a scantily clad sexpot, Katheryn Hahn as a manic ex-pornstar).

While it’s doubtful that Aniston will be winning serious acting garlands any time soon, she remains a top-tier comedienne and the material here compliments her goofily expressive style perfectly.

Though this is Rudd’s film, containing as it does what is sure to go down as one of the single funniest stand-alone scenes this year (we won’t ruin it for you, but all it involves is Rudd talking into a mirror). Wanderlust arguably stands as the greatest feature-length podium for his immense charms as a performer, somehow managing to flawlessly fuse the crestfallen everyman patented by Jason Bateman and the Slinky-like physicality of Adam Sandler at his best.

Though the film ambles to a somewhat predictable finale, its climactic plea to locate a happy medium between individual impulses and the demands of society at large remains heartening, if hardly profound. Yet, this is a more sophisticated film than many are likely to give it credit for, as Wain has developed a way to administer comic digs at the absurd veneer of society and human nature without ever resorting to derision or malice. This is a vision of what it’s like when good people get lost.”

You can read the complete article at Little White Lies

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Charmaine Blake loves movies, musical theater listening to music and taking pictures of anything that she finds interesting. She is a voracious reader and writer, and enjoys her time writing for New Movie Launches. Charmaine loves spending time with her pets and currently has a Siberian Husky, a toy poodle and a cat.