ADMISSION: THE PRINCETON REVIEW

DIRECTED BY PAUL WEITZ 

STARRING: TINA FEY, PAUL RUDD, LILY TOMLIN, NAT WOLFF, GLORIA REUBEN with WALLACE SHAWN and MICHAEL SHEEN 

‘Admission’ has a title that is so mundane it is possibly deceitful. Contextually, it is almost obvious that the word refers to the admissions process at a major university. It cannot be any clearer than, say, a film like ‘Accepted’, which was about (not) getting accepted into college. Coincidentally (and unsurprisingly so), both these words could connote their larger meanings as well. A film that offered a shoddy yet amusing line of defence for the misfits by the misfits, ‘Accepted’ tried to discuss the normative role that university acceptances play in a student’s life, in affirming and/or denying merit. ‘Admission’, similarly, could mean either (or both) of two things. On the one hand, there is admission to the university. On the other, however, it could mean an admission of guilt/regret. 

The film begins and ends with a first person confession that Portia Nathan (Tina Fey), an admissions officer at Princeton University, makes to the audience. From the beginning, we see a semblance of the age-old head-hunter remark of “our company is so competitive that I wouldn’t hire myself now if I had to.” Students, parents, teachers and well-wishers – all of them have but one thing to ask Portia. “What’s the success formula?” Alex Hitchins (Will Smith in ‘Hitch’) might have had the courtesy to give you the answer right in the beginning, but Portia drags the question along until the very end – an answer that’s as obvious as the secret recipe to the noodle soup in ‘Kung Fu Panda’. 

But if anything, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ was not about the question, was it? In as far as I remember the film, it was about a fat panda co-opting martial arts in a way that it suits him. It was the Americanization of the east; of bringing about drastic change in the art of Kung fu. There is no one right way to do anything. There is your way. There is mine. 

In that way, ‘Admission’ is not about Portia answering the question she asks herself. She does give you an answer at the very end – the obvious one. But then you realize it wasn’t necessary. In fact, it only serves to dampen an otherwise remarkable film whose only problem was that it wasn’t exactly as sharp as it ought to have been. This failure of ‘Admission’ to be a truly enthralling movie experience has to do with the fact that it doesn’t really define itself. It’s not over-the-top funny. Neither is it overly heavy on its situational irony. A woman who’s in the business of rejecting/wait-listing people learns to accept things for herself and then tries to bring other people on to her side, fails, decides that the only way to beat the system is to cheat it, only to find herself on the other side of the table where someone else ‘wait-lists’ her. As much as ‘Admission’ features pretty much all things mentioned above, it is still not about showing that woman, perhaps as much as ‘Up in the Air’ was about putting the man of cold logic back in his place. 

Still, there are things about Portia that you could comprehensively hate, just about as much as there was in Ryan Bingham (George Clooney in ‘Up in the Air’) that you could hate. They’re people in a tin can with a hand stretched out through a hole in the side as they try to open the lid, lest they suffocate. By comparing it with 'Up in the Air', I only intend to reaffirm the fact that ‘Admission’ had the potential to be something a lot more serious than what it chose to be; what it ended up being. Portia could have been a lot less apologetic about herself. John Pressman (Paul Rudd) could have come out a little stronger with his push. Michael Sheen does a sort of cameo as Portia’s ten-year boyfriend who calls it off because he knocked a Virginia Woolf scholar up. We could have done without that. What Sheen does as Mark is nothing more than tomfoolery that frustrates the film viewer as much as it frustrates Portia herself by constantly showing up, without any real reason. 

Nonetheless, if you end up not hating these people, do know that it’s not your fault. For there is something soft and real about snobs like Portia and Ryan, that you might just see them for who they really are. They are people who appear to be in control of their lives, only to break from that grand delusion, reconcile to their limitations and use them as a springboard to mount their successes on. The system ensures that it is impossible to succeed, unless you’re prepared to change the very definition of success itself. Everything changes, then. Like how, to Ryan, giving his protégé (Anna Kendrick) a glowing recommendation is enough of a shot at his own redemption. Like how Portia, for the first time in her life perhaps, fights for something she truly believes in – the candidature of the immensely talented Jeremiah Balakian (Nat Wolff) against the rest of the admissions office, including the soon-to-retire Dean of Admissions (Wallace Shawn) and Corinne (Gloria Reuben), Portia’s competitor for the spot. 

The straitjackets in Dean Clarence and Corinne deliver great performances as people who just can’t empathize anymore. To them, an application makes for light reading; they’d take only as much as they can register. Portia, interestingly, imagines students to be sitting in front of her and talking as she reads out each application. While there are moments where she literally ‘pushes them off’ for the sake of over-the-top ruthless humour, the fact that she can visualize candidates sitting across the table and telling her their stories shows her failure (a successful one, perhaps) to be completely objective. It is interesting to note here that we only see how Portia reads an application – not anybody else. It's like the kid in ‘The Sixth Sense’. We see what he sees, and it does what it does to arouse our suspicion. Similarly, Portia sees candidates instead of applications in a clear representation of the demons she battles. We do not see what Corinne sees, we most certainly do not see what Dean Clarence sees. But we assume it is not the same. 

Where ‘Admission’ I thought failed the most was in the back stories it furnishes for all its characters in an effort to define why they stood where they stood. John Pressman is a man with an inheritance who had it all – went to Dartmouth, made it to Harvard Law. It is the singular case of success losing all meaning when one has too much of it, so much so that John proceeds to seek it in a different realm; that of helping others define and find their own version of success. Portia Nathan is not only ambitious, she is also a woman and here she makes a departure from Ryan Bingham’s ‘Up in the Air’ story. Feminism creeps in, unavoidably, with Portia’s mother Susannah (Lily Tomlin) making the biggest ‘admission’ of guilt when she says Portia was the product of a thoughtless moment of passion and an unplanned pregnancy. Portia, with the grace and doggy-eyed beauty of Tina Fey, admits that she cares for her child after all, and has to distinguish her kind of empowerment from her Mother’s in a battle, which, I thought, was unnecessary. 

Moreover, the feminist allusions are so self-defeating that one worries that might have been the intention. Portia wants a man for herself and the child whom she had given away for adoption at birth. Susannah ‘admits’ to having a similar notion. Corinne, the most pragmatic of the lot, has what she claims is a wonderful relationship with her husband. All these women, in a way, define their successes with their ability to find/have found themselves the ‘right man’ and raising the ‘right child’. Even Helen, the Virginia Woolf scholar whom Mark leaves Portia for, gets pregnant and gets married to him, ultimately. It is here, in defining ‘success’ in the context of a woman, that I felt ‘Admission’ was a little problematic. 

Thus, Portia and John both make their cases in ‘Admission’. Portia makes it to the admissions panel at Princeton - who shoot her down with cruel objectivity - and to you in the audience. John makes his case to Portia. They are played by two of the most endearing comics – Fey and Rudd – that Hollywood has ever produced. Their appeal, thus, holds water in front of the audience. Portia accepts John, you accept the both of them. You shall have it no other way. But as far as the film goes, ‘Admission’ is a 2.0 GPA with a glimmer of extra merit, nothing too serious; shows promise, but not quite. 

Which means to the cold rationale of our Princeton selves, it makes the wait-list at best.

THE FILM THAT DESERVED BETTER

DIRECTED BY STEPHEN CHBOSKY 

STARRING: LOGAN LERMAN, EMMA WATSON, EZRA MILLER, MAE WHITMAN, NINA DOBREV, DYLAN McDERMOTT, KATE WALSH, ZANE HOLTZ, REECE THOMPSON with MELANIE LYNSKEY, JOAN CUSACK and PAUL RUDD 

‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ has a refrain that could make you wonder if John Woo made it. We accept the love we think we deserve. These lines are said twice in the film, one of them to the person they were originally intended for. Paul Rudd says it the first time as Mr. Anderson, the High-School English teacher who takes it upon himself to bring a protégé to the right path. His sad eyes speak of warmth and sincerity that remind us that his likeability as a comic had little to do with the goofball self he often portrays, but the person inside him who calls out through his eyes, once in a while, like a bathtub with lather and temperature that could be called just about right. 

Freshman Logan Lerman says it the second time, playing Charlie – a freshman as well. He makes friends out of the audience whom he writes to on a typewriter that had been gifted to him for that purpose. He would make for an excellent existential archetype, if you think about it. He lives so he can narrate his story to us, the audience – in much the same way that Lester Burnham (from American Beauty) dies so he can tell us all about his death. 

The line is thrown, initially, in an outburst when the frenzied teen summons enough courage to ask his favourite teacher the question that has been bothering him for a while. Why do nice people always pick the wrong people to date? We have seen/heard people say/feel the same thing, in real life as well as in films. The guy played by Jason Biggs in Loser, for instance. Peter Parker when he’s not Spiderman feels the same way about Mary Jane Watson. It’s the classic Hollywood love-triangle plot. Writers write it in so people wouldn’t hesitate to sympathize with their lead characters. We sympathize with Charlie for much the same reason; and also because Logan Lerman shares his dread, finding himself humbled by the weight of such a big performance that he finds he can do it after all, much ado intended. 

The second time – and we’re still talking about the line, by the way – is when you find it has a whole new connotation. It comes at a time when we know more about these characters, these people, that their suffering takes a different turn. Barely ten minutes are left in the film when the line is thrown and the film is opened; how much responsibility can the ending take? These are people who know no hatred, which is ironically the source-point of their frustrations. This is a film that reveres suffering, be it in the punk-Buddhist girl who hides herself behind badly done hair and dark lipstick and an immersion in mindless ambition; be it the English teacher whom we don’t see much of, who could have a whole arc like that in Half Nelson going on in his life for all we know; the happy-go-lucky homosexual friend and his closeted lover-boy who has to endure so much to keep his precious jock-life intact. 

Deep down, all these people strive to be better beings – so much so that they crack under the pressure. Every one of them. And the film on its part advertises the beauty in letting go – much like It’s kind of a Funny Story, which was about self-inflicted pressure due to parental expectations – both being vivid adaptations of young adult novels from the recent past. If I had to make a personal comment here, I find that all young adult writing seems to be dealing with the same thing – consciousness. It hurts to be aware of what you can’t cure. And that hurt seems like a promising central premise of any given story. The very mention of the Catcher in the Rye in this film, for instance, is both an inside-joke and a clear sign of where things are heading. 

Or the soundtrack, if you’d like a look. ‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ finds beauty in music that glorifies pain. What it calls good taste – a term that Sam (Emma Watson) keeps repeating throughout the film – is in sadness. The girl in It’s Kind of a Funny Story talked about Ian Curtis. Sam here talks about Nick Drake and the Smiths (she calls them the best breakup band), even though the final touch has to be the significance of the David Bowie song Heroes to this film. These are kings and queens through their very own night-vision goggles – the same goggles they had used, previously, to place themselves in darkness, a shadow they had cast upon themselves. And they go through their rituals of pain and suffering, some of which is irreparable (you can’t change where you come from, but you can change where you go, says Dr. Burton – Joan Cusack – who contributes with her one-liner to match Mr. Anderson) only to liberate themselves in a physical show of grace under pressure that would render Hemingway and Bertolucci (the Dreamers) proud. 

I’m aware I’ve talked about a half a dozen films until this point without really telling you what ‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ is about. That could be because I’m struggling with giving it credit for being itself. In its own words, to accept the film, I should think I deserved it. But what happens if I felt I deserve more? Let me tell you more about the film so you can decide for yourself. It starts as a film about a boy with a disturbing past that causes him to be confined to self rather than open to social interaction. It takes him a while before he makes an effort to shake hands, the other boy being someone who’s popularly called Nothing (Ezra Miller) – the butt of his own joke. He’s called Patrick, otherwise, and it is through him that Charlie (the boy) gets to meet Sam, who looks like the usual short-haired girl with a boy’s name, like Alex from Bridge to Terebithia – she’s not too far from her either, given her character and the role she plays in dear Charlie’s life. Sam is Patrick’s step-sister, their relationship affected in no way by that detail. There is no Cruel Intentions motif – Patrick, quite conveniently, is gay, which also adds one more to the wallflower lot, as they call themselves. 

In spite of the gay friend, there is not a single moment when the film compromises on its seriousness – probably the first time I liked a film for not wanting to be funny. Even it’s Kind of a Funny Story pulled a couple of gags. Not this one, though. There is no weak sibling character who fools around; no parent trying to lighten things up a bit. The siblings are, in fact, perhaps the strongest characters for they have made it to the grown-up world already as the rest of them hope to get there someday. Charlie’s sister Candice (Nina Dobrev) – a senior in high-school – deals with an abusive relationship with yet another marginalized individual called pony-tail Derek. The door of her room open a crack, Charlie sees Derek hit a high on frenzy and throw a full-blown smack across Candice’s face. The next scene shows her kissing him goodbye at the doorstep. When he confronts her about it, she tells him he wouldn’t understand. 

A similar instance is when Charlie – officially dating Mary Elizabeth (Mae Whitman) – kisses Sam in a game of ‘Truth or Dare’. Both women are outraged, which has Charlie wonder why. Patrick, another of the film’s more well-defined and beautiful characters, puts a hand on his shoulder and tells Charlie that these are girls who have seen a lot of guys before him, and that he wouldn’t understand what it means in terms of significance of his own actions. 

‘the Perks of Being a Wallflower’, that way, is beautiful in moments. And it has some  characters that genuinely care, backed by solid performances that show it. Logan Lerman gives life to Charlie like Alex Shaffer did to Kyle Timmons in Win Win. He wins our attention in the scene where he matter-of-factly confides to Sam on how his friend shot himself. Much like how she wins ours when she describes her first kiss. The beauty of that scene shall not be understood until towards the end – something I cursed the film for. We’ve both gone through the same things, Charlie tells Sam. It says so much about the film. Like Katradhu Thamizh in comparison. This is not just the story of an introverted high-school kid. And even if it was, it only speaks of the layers that might lie underneath a person’s introversion, or extroversion (in Sam’s case). I shall not tell you what was a part of Charlie’s life to save you some suspense, but I think you can understand what it might be that could’ve brought a whole new dimension to the film that seems unacceptable given the fact that the entire lead-up seems to have taken us away from it. It is given away in a moment that has us think we have been deceived, for this could’ve been a great movie, but it chose not to be. Kind of like Charlie himself, if you think about it. 

Otherwise, ‘the Perks of being a Wallflower’ is your typical high-school film with critical acclaim that comes as a twist to the tale. It discusses the future – admissions, aging, etc. – something that Election and It’s Kind of a Funny Story tried to touch. There is talk about SATs and applications and how that contributes to most of the frustration in the life of these characters – which is not all, though, for all of them come with additional baggage as well. It has an 80s soundtrack – the best way to set the tone, stoke the fire and make-out in front of it. Homosexuality has come to be a recent theme, as well as casual handling of the same. Easy A is a strong example where Olive Penderghast and her gay (male) friend pretend like they’re having sex behind closed doors so he can still remain in the closet. Here, Patrick makes out with Alice (Erin Wilhelmi), a straight girl with her eyes on film school, talking about fag-on-goth action. A line that’s in better taste would be when he calls a bunch of presents he receives as so gay, I thought I might have given it to myself. 

There’s sex, there’s drugs; even rock-n-roll (David Bowie – duh!) – a stage adaptation of the Rocky Horror Picture show plays a significant part in the film’s initial frivolousness, kind of like the elusive rock concert in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, or the extended music-class jam of the Queen song Under Pressure in It’s Kind of a Funny Story. Parents are kept in the distance as teenagers take over all possible roles, including inhabiting an exclusive world of LSD and Merlot wine without the legal angle brought into it. Even a film like Superbad did well to criminalize it, even if to parody itself on that front thereon. And then, of course, other than the girl with the fairy lights around her, everyone else is ridiculous as a choice for a girlfriend. Like Mary Elizabeth, who is possessive, fretful, clingy; a burden, in short. 

What could have been a film as impacting as – and I’m going to give it away by making this comparison, but what the hell – Trust (2010), fizzles away into something relatively bleaker and haphazard; even less of a shocker than, say, the Lovely Bones for the simple reason that it didn’t want to take the skeleton out of the closet before a dramatic last act that only had me blame the film more, for having not played it closer to the body; much closer.

ON AGING GRACEFULLY

DIRECTED BY JUDD APATOW 

STARRING: PAUL RUDD, LESLIE MANN, IRIS APATOW, MAUDE APATOW, ALBERT BROOKS, MEGAN FOX, JASON SEGEL, CHRIS O’DOWD, ANNIE MUMOLO, CHARLYNE YI, JOHN LITHGOW with LENA DUNHAM, GRAHAM PARKER and MELISSA McCARTHY 

That Judd Apatow has been (in my opinion) behind two of the best films Hollywood had produced in 2012 – ‘the Five-Year Engagement’ and ‘This is 40’ – is conclusive proof that the R-rated comedy is fast becoming one of the defining products of the industry these days. Apatow has teamed up with Universal Studios ever since ‘the 40-year old Virgin’ (2005), a collaboration that has given us a film every alternate year. As producer and director, Apatow works with a close-knit bunch of people – comedians and actors alike – a group that’s turning out to be thicker than the Frat-pack of the ‘90s, or maybe even the Monty Python crew. Together, they seem to be giving life to this new style of filmmaking that is so characteristic that it’s almost a trend. I shall leave it to the experts to come up with a suitable name. 

‘This is 40’ follows Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from Apatow’s ‘Knocked Up.’ In a manner of most Kevin Smith’s ‘askewniverse’ comedies, he doesn’t wait to develop these characters for us once again, trusting the audience with their memory, of the big details and maybe even the little things they might’ve noticed the last time around. Maude and Iris Apatow (real-life daughters of Apatow and Mann) play Sadie and Charlotte, who are thirteen and eight years old, respectively. Sadie resembles Debbie to such an extent, even in her compulsiveness and her temper. She watches the TV series ‘Lost’ wherever she finds it playing – on a computer, on her iPad, on a smart-phone – everywhere but the television. Charlotte, on the other hand, is a sport, probably following her Dad (and by ‘Dad’, I mean more Apatow than Pete), who is great at playing Angry Cow and the Trampoline. She also occasionally plays the keyboard, adding to a minimalistic soundtrack – just the way Apatow does it, all the time. 

The story is simple. Pete’s turning 40 soon. Debbie has just turned ‘38’. Which means she’s actually turned 40 but won’t admit it. She says she wants to be 38 for two more years. We have a feeling that these people stopped growing a whole lot before. From where we left them last, they seem to have gotten going better, with Pete setting up his own record label with an aim to resurrect people whom he liked listening to, growing up. A largely-contested move has him sign Graham Parker and the Rumour on their first record in 30 years. He aims to sell ten thousand records to Parker’s hardest fans. 

Debbie, on her part, runs a clothing line that shows unexplained losses. Jodi (Charlyne Yi) says Desi (Megan Fox) is behind it, both being sales clerks. Debbie – the famous control freak she is – is not going to let it go unnoticed. She watches tapes that show Desi to be guilty, but not of theft. She even goes Girls Gone Wild with her to get to the bottom of this. What she finds out is barely startling – as compared to what Pete seems to be hiding from her. 

If you expect extra-marital sexcapades, then let me bring you down on that right away; there are none. This is not a spoiler. Remember ‘Knocked Up’ where Debbie, Ben and Katie sneak upon Pete thinking he’s having an affair, only to find him playing fantasy baseball? Apatow jumps obstacles of mid-life crises as commonly represented in film. No one loses a job, even though there is a house on the line. There is a financial problem, it does stretch their marriage. But it doesn’t break it. Debbie isn’t as worried about Pete cheating on her as she’s worried about him sneaking money to give his Dad Larry (Albert Brooks) who’s raising three kids with a second wife. This worry – we second-guess – could be bitterness stemming from own absent dad Oliver (John Lithgow) – a neurosurgeon who does a cameo in her life for only as long as Mr. Lithgow does one in this film. 

‘This is 40’ is that sweet film of the year your kids can’t watch. Apatow seems to be popularizing that, getting middle-aged couples to go to the movies leaving kids behind with their baby-sitter – which is fair enough, considering they’d not want them inspired by the kids on screen, sweet though they are. What’s striking about an Apatow vehicle is the amount of depth he provides to the supporting characters. Even the weakest in this film – Jodi, another reeled in from ‘Knocked Up’ – has her moments, shaped by Charlyne Yi. Jason (Segel) retains keeps his flirtation with Debbie going as her physical trainer. There is an exciting scene in the film where he, along with Ronnie (Chris O’Dowd), one of Pete’s disapproving employees at the label, rates Desi against Debbie. Jason says she’s a seven who can become an eleven at best, as opposed to Debbie, who, he believes, has hit a twelve. This, for all we know, could be Apatow’s present to his wife, Ms. Mann, for her actual fortieth. 

I had called ‘the Five-Year Engagement’ and ‘This is 40’ as two of last year’s best that Hollywood had produced. I believe they are. Firstly, there hasn’t been much to compare them with. Secondly, like I said, Apatow strengthens his kind of filmmaking, retaining the influence of classic comic routines, yet giving his actors enough liberty that it almost looks like improv – which works for a film as this, where they’re either playing themselves or someone else as real. Third of all, Apatow – as both producer and director – has been consistently giving us comedies in the spirit of Hollywood storytelling, rooting themselves in both the romantic ideal of the dysfunctional marriage/relationship/household, and of dysfunction as it really is, presented in a vague self-parody. The effect, needless to say, is delightful – perhaps as delightful as a cupcake sneaked out from under your wife’s nose, or the little puff on a cigarette and a mint after, which your husband’s never going to know about. It’s a twelve on ten.

WHERE 'IDIOCY' IS BUT A CLEVER CONSTRUCT

DIRECTED BY JESSE PERETZ

STARRING: PAUL RUDD, EMILY MORTIMER, ELIZABETH BANKS, ZOOEY DESCHANEL, RASHIDA JONES, SHIRLEY KNIGHT, ADAM SCOTT, KATHRYN HANN, JANET MONTGOMERY, STERLING K. BROWN with T.J. MILLER, HUGH DANCY and STEVE COOGAN

I like Mr. Bean. Let me tell you that upfront. I don’t like what Rowan Atkinson does with him, mixing conceit, propagating not merely the impractical, but also the undesirable to an extent that it’s not funny anymore. Humour is when you approve of it. Mr. Bean irritates. Give him a situation with only one thing that you wish to the heavens that he wouldn’t do and he’d do it. Like Crystal memorabilia however safely lodged, and he’d find a way to break it. He’s the selfish brat that stirs little empathy except in gimmicky patches where one comes to learn how alone he is and how, in such chronic loneliness, one can fathom his retardation to sociopathic levels.

But I still like the idea of him. I mean the idea of a human being you can’t classify, who has nothing like a job description, who comes across the straightest of situations and finds a way to bend it that you can’t call him anything other than an ‘idiot,’ which you call him to the best of your exasperation. It’s actually a credit on his part, it’s something that you owe to him. The reasonability of such classification and the spirit with which he accepts it. He makes things a whole lot easier for you, now doesn’t he? Who else, even in fictional society, have we been able to place this conveniently and to the best of their acceptance as well? As easy as calling a Blonde a Blonde, if you see what I mean.

This unclassifiable nature of a man is what forms the crux of ‘Our Idiot Brother.’ It’s the kind of film that’s amicable in that it’s not supposed to be. We know how much Ned Rochlin (Paul Rudd) loves everyone who constitutes every moment of his life. “I like to think that if you can put your trust out there, if you can really give people the benefit of the doubt, see their best intentions, then they’ll want to live up to it,” he says. There isn’t a moment when we see him defying his own philosophy, that which stems from routine, more or less; from the fact that he doesn’t have one, more precisely.

Ned used to work at a vegetable farm with his girlfriend Janet (Kathryn Hann), a hippie-parody as I see her. Ned himself is a week away from dreadlocks. But he’s better. He’s better than her, he’s better than the slowpoke (T.J. Miller) she replaces him with when he goes to jail. He’s the guy who hasn’t found company and is just making do with those available; even those who aren’t. “No one can love anyone unconditionally as Ned does!” his sister Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) screams at an outrageous Janet in the penultimate scene. In whom does a man like that find company? How does one love everyone beyond a level of reciprocation that’s virtually unattainable on the other person’s part? It’s certainly strenuous, but Ned is THE optimist. And he has hippies for friends. It’s almost a double-standard – a safe-play on part of writers Jesse and Evgenia Peretz. You want to give Ned some credit for real-world-applicability, sure. They do vouch for it. Or if you prefer to slap the hippie label on him, they do that too. In their defence, it’s a difficult stand. I get it.

What I liked and disliked about the film is the same thing – how much it situates its perspective in Ned’s sisters and how much it fails to do so. They are, obviously, the tellers of this tale. To us, Ned is the free-floating Samaritan whose only happiness is in keeping everyone else happy. To his sisters, he is an idiot, at least until he strikes a vein. “Why can’t I just sit around with my family and play a game of charades?” Ned asks. His sisters scoff at that question, even Elizabeth, the oldest who’s cast in the fragility and wisdom of Emily Mortimer. They are made to. And we, to the best of intentions, are made to hate them. Why else would one cast Elizabeth Banks who, in my opinion, was born annoying? It’s what comes easiest to her. Zooey Deschanel as the pansexual Natalie adds weird to the list of frigid and feeble, a heavy hand against Ned’s case.

The fact that a man who has this defeatist a sense of romance with his life comes with three sisters from different spectra of materialism is unexplained. Ned looks to be an older brother. Ebert, in his review of ‘Dan in Real Life,’ spoke about how Dan’s three daughters treat him like ‘a slow sort of brother.’ Well, Ned is exactly that. But then what is that which stops any of his sisters show even the slightest amount of attachment? Cindy (Natalie’s girlfriend as played by Rashida Jones), I thought, bonded better. ‘Lars and the Real Girl’ took care enough to explain to us how, in the film’s opinion, Lars Lindstrom (played by the exceptional Ryan Gosling) became socially retarded. How Gus Lindstrom, his brother, retaliates against his own guilt. ‘Our Idiot Brother’ doesn’t hint at such a back-story. This man is the kindest of souls amidst a flock of vultures. Period.

With that, I’ve come to the end of my review. Please note that I didn’t take this time to devalue ‘Our Idiot Brother’ for the heck of it. I watched it for the second time to write this review. There, I think, lies the problem. This isn’t the kind of film you watch again. A second watch would only point at ways not to believe in it. And that, in a way, is injustice to the stigma of likeability called Paul Rudd.