Our Idiot Brother

A version of this review appeared in The Age, November 3, 2011.

Jesse Peretz's mild independent comedy belongs to the tradition of Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and many another film about a brood of eccentrics who learn to loosen up and embrace each others' quirks. It might have been intolerable if not for a characteristically witty performance by Paul Rudd as long-haired drop-out Ned Rochlin, an “idiot” readily tricked into selling pot to a uniformed cop.

When he gets out of prison, Ned finds that he's no longer welcome at the biodynamic farm where he once lived with his hippie girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn). He's forced to turn for help to his mother (Shirley Knight) and his three sisters – a tightly-wound magazine writer (Elizabeth Banks), a flaky stand-up comic (Zooey Deschanel), and a politically correct wife and mother (Emily Mortimer).

Ned is a holy fool whose innocence highlights the flaws of the other characters, though his own mooching often seems equally selfish and irresponsible. While the issue is never addressed head-on, it's implied that the woes of this particular dysfunctional family stem from the absence of a father figure – and that Ned would be fine if he didn't have all these women bossing him around.

The film would be more interesting if he were less of a saint, and if the humour generally had a sharper, more cynical edge.  Alas, we'll never know how this cast and premise would have been handled by Todd Solondz, whose recent, corrosive Life During Wartime made very similar use of a trio of sisters.