Just the Ticket #52: The Grass Is Always Greener

Judd Apatow and company are still smokin' with their latest effort (a word you don't see often when a certain kind of grass is involved), yet another inappropriate, heartfelt comedy.
Wanderlust (a German word meaning "a desire to hike") stars the ever-tense Paul Rudd and the ever-beautiful Jennifer Aniston as a New York couple screwed by conveniently compounding cliche's of our time (corporate Ponzi schemes, expensive-yet-worthless housing) who chance to move into a cliche'd "voluntary community" ("we don't like the word 'commune.' It sounds like we're a bunch of hippies who sit around all day smoking pot and playing guitar." Cue acoustic guitar solo and doobie smoke from the other room) that changes their outlook on life for the better.
Ugly nudists, psychologically disturbed horny chicks, public childbirth, open intercourse, doorless bathrooms, mud-drinking, and uncomfortably single-entendre strings of sexually suggestive syllables spatter the cinemascape from start to sayonara. But as Apatow's crew tends to do, they set the level of discomfort and disgust so high (but not too high) that you can't help but laugh and mean it. They know the formula for a good love-hate relationship, and they play to it brilliantly.
Most of the time. Not sharing in the free love are Rudd's onscreen brother (Ken Marino, Children's Hospital, also Rudd's co-star in Role Models), whose likability factor quickly escalates from "punch me in the face" to "please, please, please throw me out the second story window" with every derogatory word that comes out of his mouth, and his pill-popping alcoholic wife, Marissa (whom the brother calls MRSA, a flesh-eating bacteria in the staph infection family. No other reason to dislike this character is necessary. Oh, and she's played by Saturday Night Live's Michaela Watkins, if anyone cares and nobody cries).
I laughed, I cringed, I laughed, I smirked, and I laughed some more. And the American trailers accompanying Wanderlust had me nostalgic for an American Reunion (out on DVD July 10, 2012). Good job.
B+

Until then, stay tuned. Next issue, I whisper to myself and everything's on fire. That's right Ticketholders, it's time for Seeking Justice with Nicholas Cage!

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