I went to see “Wanderlust” under the guise that I was going to get to see Jennifer Aniston’s goods.
They never appeared in their full glory.
Despite that disappointment, watching “Wanderlust” was an uproariously good time.
The film begins with George (Paul Rudd) getting fired from his NYC desk job. Stuck in an apartment that he can no longer afford, George and his wife, Linda (Jennifer Aniston), travel south to Georgia to move in with George’s brother, Rick.
On the way down, a wrong left turn and a flipped car lands the couple at a hippie commune called Elysium.
At Elysium, the drugs are good, the love is free, and things are simple. It doesn’t take long for the couple to question if the life they left is really one that they want to return to.
While “Wanderlust” might sound like a serious, soul-searching journey, it’s far from it.
The film’s painfully awkward humor will have you cringing in your seat in between bouts of laughter. Nothing is off limits for the “Wanderlust” writers. Soups made from a woman’s placenta and sex pep talks in guttural tones mark just another day in Elysium.
The film is funny, but most of the jokes are about one thing–male anatomy. And though this is a typical Apatow-approach to get the box office bucks, “Wanderlust” seems to recycle the joke. Even Paul Rudd’s character has had enough of them by the end of film, asking, “Can’t I at least wake up one morning without a d*ck in my face?”
Genitalia aside, though, “Wanderlust” is not what I was expecting.
The previews bill the film as a romantic comedy, but the romance gets lost between the stampeding nudists and sophomoric humor. Every scene is humorous, but scenes don’t always add up to contribute to the overall plot line. This makes the film sometimes seem like a long series of sketches.
While previous Apatow-produced films mark the characters coming-of-age with some ostentatious event, “Wanderlust” just teeters out. This leaves the main characters none the more mature than when they started their journey.
The good news about this film is that you could just as easily see it with your bros or your girlfriend, making it a safe bet for a night out.
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