Our Idiot Brother

Grade: C+

Every movie has some sort of message it wants to convey. There has to be a point, otherwise where does the conflict come from? Some movies will try to subvert this and intentionally be about nothing, but those are the exception that proves the rule more than anything. It’s intentionally contradictory as a statement about what the norm is. The norm though is for there to be a message. Some movies are subtle about their message. Some are vague. Some like to leave it up to interpretation. And some just want to make it a bold statement. Jesse Peretz’s Our Idiot Brother is the latter.

A lot of times that is a bad thing. Being too obvious makes the rest of the movie kind of pointless. If you are just going to tell me the message then why not just save me the hour and a half and tell it to me right now. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure the message is received, and with a good message you should want to make sure it is known, but there are better ways to do it then just tell us. With all that being said I liked Our Idiot Brother, just for different reasons.

If all you want out this movie is the message then here it is: we shouldn’t take things for granted. A commonly acknowledged message but something that a lot of us (no pun intended) tend to take for granted. Life in general is kind of amazing so really every little thing really is kind of a big deal, and a lot of us (myself included) often overlook that. The way the movie chooses to tell this to you is through Paul Rudd’s character Ned. Ned is, as the title suggests, the family idiot. He never seems to figure things out and is either too naïve for his own good (as is shown by him not realizing that two people alone in a room naked are probably having sex) or too seemingly stupid to ever be able to get ahead in life (as we see in the first scene where he gets tricked into selling drugs to a police officer that is still in uniform).

The main story of the movie revolves around his interactions with his sisters Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), and Liz (Emily Mortimer) as he tries to put his life, relatively, back together after getting out of prison for the aforementioned dealings with a police officer. His girlfriend Janet (Kathryn Hahn) has kicked him out of their farm and taken his dog Willie Nelson, all the while shacking up with a new hippy guy named Billy (TJ Miller). Ned now with no home, no job, and no dog is forced to live with his mom and try to do odds and ends jobs to make enough money to pay a rent. Soon he finds that living with his mother just won’t work so he tries living with each of his sisters. Of course happy go lucky Ned is turns out to be too much of a burden for each sister as they try to lead their own busy lives.

The rest of the movie is just series of events that show Ned simultaneously being a burden while also using his naïve and simple logic to teach each sibling a lesson. At first they think he is the cause of all their problems, and then all of a sudden they realize they caused all their problems and all he wanted to do was help. It all culminates in them showing their appreciation by trying to steal back his dog. This is when the movies message is spoon fed to you by the following exchange:

Janet: “why do you even want this dog back?”

Miranda “Because he loves that dog more than anything in the world. None of us love anything more than Ned loves that dog.”

They then all have the realization of how wrong they have been and how they need to change their ways.

At this point you may think I’m giving away too much of the plot, and I probably have, but I did it because what makes this movie enjoyable is not the story but rather the performances. Like I said this story has been told before, but what makes this time different is that this cast is just so much fun to watch.

Paul Rudd is one of the most likeable people in Hollywood. Now team him up with a golden retriever, like they did in this film, and you can’t help but crack a smile. Elizabeth Banks plays uptight better than just about anyone so of course she was great as the uptight fashion magazine ladder climber Miranda. Zooey Deschanel is always adorable as the bubbly indie girl. But this movie wasn’t just happy with that so they teamed her up with the equally as adorable Rashida Jones as a lesbian couple that, while not a hot as you would think, is still crazy cute. Sure it’s all pandering, but it’s super adorable pandering at its finest.

And that’s not even the best part of the cast. The real scene stealers lie in the secondary characters. Adam Scott (who is unquestionably one of my favorite actors working right now) is dead on as the more than just a neighbor, science fiction writer that lives below Miranda. It’s the type of nuanced performance Scott has been churning out lately, and is extremely rare in light hearted comedies like this. Emily Mortimer brings it too as the married sister who is trying her hardest to make her family work even though her husband is being beyond ridiculous with his standards. She’s almost a little too over the top as this seemed like the type of performance that seems like she is trying her hardest to do well so she can be welcomed into the cool kids club for other movies, but it definitely works. Steve Coogan, a guy who seems really likeable, plays the jerk husband to almost perfection. Seriously you will hate him by the time the movie is over.

Easily the funniest performances though go to the hippy couple of Janet and Billy played by the seriously underrated Kathryn Hahn and TJ Miller. You may recognize Hahn from various things and she is always one of the best parts of the movies she is in, and this movie is no different. She is one delightfully mean and controlling hippy. You might also recognize Miller from various other things too, but this might be his best role as the equally as happy go lucky as Ned, Billy. He’s just so nice and dumb that even though he is technically helping Janet ruin the life Ned had before prison, you still can’t help but love him.

All this kind of sums up the movie perfectly: for all its faults you still can’t help but enjoy it. The script is weak and at sometimes flat out annoying (the dog’s name is Willie Nelson and you will remember that as it’s said about a hundred times). Also the story is nothing new. But through its extremely enjoyable cast and performances it will win you over. This has the feeling of a movie that was a ton of fun to shoot and you can sense it all throughout. It was not the most ambitious movie but it is one of the most likeable movies I have seen in a while.