I would like to re-do the last two hours of my life. Doing so would not only strike “Wanderlust” from my memory, but also erase my recollection of two terrific actors starring in a production that barely qualifies as a movie. Paul Rudd has a lifetime pass in my book for his performance in “I Love You, Man.” His loveable, sincere, socially awkward shtick produced the biggest laughs in that production. He brings some of that act to “Wanderlust,” only it doesn’t work as well. Actually, there are moments when it’s downright embarrassing, such as when he’s trying to talk dirty to a girl who wants to sleep with him. Rudd obviously improvised those scenes, and they’re painful to watch.
Then there’s Jennifer Aniston, whom I love in “Friends,” and who’s better than 99 percent of the movies in which she’s acted. Her years on “Friends” proved she has good instincts as an actor and impeccable timing, but movies like this don’t demand much from her. She’s like a world-class pianist that makes a living playing a cheap electronic keyboard at parties. Aniston doesn’t humiliate herself in “Wanderlust” like Rudd does, but it’s discouraging to watch her in yet another production that wastes her talents.
The story: George and Linda are married in Manhattan. He brings home the bacon while she pursues random whims that never gain traction. (As the movie opens, she’s pitching a documentary about penguins with testicular cancer to HBO.) Early on, George loses his job, so he and Linda are forced to leave their vacuous New York life to live with his brother in Georgia.
On the drive there, they get tired and decide to stop at what they think is a bed and breakfast. It turns out to be a hippie commune where free love rules. Although they don’t buy into the concept, they have a great time, so when things go poorly at George’s brother’s, they decide to give life at the commune a shot.
From there, “Wanderlust” becomes a barely funny five-minute fish-out-water sketch stretched out to a miserable 98 minutes. There are bits that work initially, but then because there’s nowhere else to go, director David Wain and his writers repeatedly recycle the jokes. Alan Alda’s slightly senile hippie gets a laugh the first time he recites the long list of the names of the founders of the commune, but that soon wears thin.
There’s a running gag about a male nudist whose junk keeps ending up in George’s face that also comes up short. And I laughed a couple of times at how the leader of the commune, Seth, has been away from society so long, he says things like, “You can’t go back to the world of Walkmans and two-way pagers now that you’ve had a taste of freedom,” but that gets old, too.
As Linda slowly becomes acclimated to the commune, including the free love, George becomes frustrated with how things are going and begins to long for a return to his old life. Meanwhile, a silly subplot involving a rich developer who wants to build a casino on the commune’s property and a secret betrayal by a member of the kibbutz pinch out the teeny, tiny creative spark at the heart of “Wanderlust.”
To me, the funniest part of “Wanderlust” is how the movie morphs into an intense family drama during a scene at George’s brother’s house. It’s so sudden, serious and out of tune with the rest of the movie, I had to laugh.
I understand that it might be hard for an actor to judge what the final product will look like when they agree to perform in a movie. And I imagine a lot of script changes take place on the set of a movie, although I have a hard time believing the creators of “Wanderlust” worked off of anything more complicated than a story treatment. But I hope this comedic dud encourages Rudd and especially Aniston to begin taking a harder look at projects before signing on the dotted line.
Rated R for sexual content, graphic nudity, language and drug use. One-and-a-half stars out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.