Well, judging by my recent string of Snap Reviews, I think it's pretty obvious that I have quite a big penchant for bad movies. And moreover, my penchant for bad movies seems to be refined even more to the bad romantic comedies/chick flick categories. But I am turning a new leaf in my writing life. No longer will I apologize for my love for the bad. No, I now embrace my love for all things bad romantic comedy. You've been warned.
And on this new tip of mine, cue my early morning viewing of Wanderlust, the new David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models) directed comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd as a married couple who take a hiatus from their New York City lives at a hippie commune. To be fair, this is definitely much less of a traditional romantic comedy, but instead a comedy mixed with some romance. Either way, it seems to pretty heavily fall under the chick flick heading; and judging by its dismal opening weekend audience reception as well as mainstream reviews, it was set to be a fairly bad movie.
But here's the thing: Wanderlust doesn't really fall into my aforementioned category, because after seeing it, it became very clear to me that it really wasn't that bad. In fact, I'd even go as far as to say that it was not a bad movie in any sense of the word. Now it wasn't a great movie, but it really did not live up to all the critical panning.
So just what did Wanderlust get right? Well, true to form, it was, in fact, a comedy with romantic tendencies mixed in. I laughed, I felt momentary concern, I laughed again, and I left the theater feeling pretty upbeat. So, they definitely got the formula right.
Wanderlust, also, was able to present a wide variety of kooky-but-loveable characters in the form of the supporting cast. While most movies that fall into this genre can usually only maintain one, two at best, characters like this since it is set in some sort of reality (i.e. any supporting role Zooey Deschanel might play), Wanderlust was able to achieve such great heights of funny weird characters precisely because of its plot. I mean, in hippie commune terms, the weirder the better. And weird they were, but more importantly, they were also very funny. I'd even venture to say that the supporting cast, made up of Alan Alda, Justin Theroux, Malin Akerman, Kathryn Hahn, Lauren Ambrose, Ken Marino, and Todd Barry, even made the movie.
And if that solid of a supporting cast doesn't interest you even a little bit, then Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston as lead characters surely will. Right? I mean, this is just such a lovable cast.
And that's exactly how I saw the movie– it was lovable and fun. There were some awkward, silly, and perhaps even one or two stale moments for sure, but overall I'm confident that Wanderlust achieved what it set out to do (in laughs, not critical reception).
RENT IT.
