Wanderlust

I can’t quite figure out what to say about our latest movie excursion, Wanderlust with Jennifer Aniston, Paul Rudd, and Justin Theroux. Part of me wants to applaud a raunchy, funny film about hippiedom and communal living; part of me wants to reject it as simply a raunchy, funny forgettable film. My ambivalence has to do with the fact that although many of the scenes were funny, I discovered that neither I nor most of the audience were laughing out loud, maybe an occasional chuckle, but nothing like the side-splitting laughter of most Seinfeld episodes. The plot’s center is a present-day commune called Elysium, owned and founded by an aging Alan Alda, peopled by a collection of oddballs: Jeff (Justin Theroux), the leader of the band; a nudist wine-maker who also hopes to become a best-selling author; a black/white couple who, after the wife delivers a baby au natural, carry the baby around with placenta and cord still attached until, they say, it falls off naturally; a lovely blond extolling the joys of free love; and dozens of old and young sharing a seemingly idyllic life without doors and plenty of hallucinogenic drugs. George and Linda (Rudd and Aniston) flee the Big Apple after George loses his job and they can no longer afford their “micro-loft” (about 150 square feet of very expensive West Village property). They are going to Atlanta to live with and work for his obnoxious brother. But along the way they get sidetracked looking for an inexpensive place to spend the night. And they find Elysium, and Elysium finds them. The rest of the plot is pretty predictable, but pretty funny also. My ambivalence tells me to give it three of five stars. My final criterion for movie judging is the length of time I’ll remember it. Not for very long.