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Wanderlust

6/10

Stars: Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux, Alan Alda, Malin Akerman, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio. Kathryn Hahn, Kenney-Silver, Lauren Ambrose, Michaela Watkins, Jordan Peele, Linda Lavin

Director: David Wain

Here’s another film aimed at moviegoers looking for a fun night at the movies rather than skewed towards critics.

It’s lewd, crude, rude and regrettably funny as you might expect from a comedy produced by Judd Bridesmaids, Knocked up and Superbad Apatow.

Rudd and Aniston (the latter taking a break from her regular habitat on the covers of the American supermarket magazine ‘National Enquirer’) buy a minute studio apartment (more accurately described as a micro-loft), but he loses his job and the Manhattanites head for Georgia. On the way they spend a night at a hippy community called Elysium (“DREAMS DISPENSED DAILY. BRING YOUR OWN CONTAINER”) among as weird a bunch of uncertified loonies as you could hope to meet.

After a brief stay with Rudd’s loathsome brother Marino and his justifiably miserable wife Watkins, they head back to Elysium to try a life of swallowed hallucinogens, nudity, sexual sharing and wacky commune (or as they call it “Intentional community") life filled with foul language and fouler happenings, the funniest being Rudd rehearsing his supremely vulgar approach to having sex with sexy Akerman as revenge for Aniston sleeping with Elysium’s Alpha Male Theroux.

Subtlety in situation and characterization are clearly not on the agenda of director Wain and his cowriter Marino. Fortunately the cast, including Alda as the memory-lacking founder of the commune, are happy to join in the hardly-intellectual proceedings with enjoyable effect.

Characters are broad and broadly played and scenes relying on drug-induced freewheeling and nudity are essential aspects of the comic armoury which happily are embraced by the cast who give it their all and, in the case of some cast members, rather more. And if the smile freezes on your face at some of the jokes, the hilarious outtakes that accompany the end credits should have you laughing - even if you feel ashamed of yourself later.

Alan Frank

USA 2012. UK Distributor: Universal. Colour.
98 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 2, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 3, Swearing 3.

Review date: 27 Feb 2012