These days, comedies rarely offer anything new. Unless Melissa McCarthy is crapping in a sink, what we see in theaters is an assembly line of one crazy situation after the next — all designed to crank out a fixed quota of laughs per minute. They lack organic moments that make good comedy genuinely funny and relatable.

Every now and then comes a comedy that’s so brazenly ridiculous you laugh in spite of your better judgment. Such is the case for Judd Apatow’s ‘Wanderlust,’ a movie so centered on its outrageousness that you can’t help being swept along for the ride.

Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston play George and Linda, a city-slicking couple chasing the modern American dream. They’ve barely moved into their ‘micro-loft’ when a string of misfortune leaves them jobless and homeless. Cut to the bickering pair driving into the outskirts of civilization, where they might make the journey to self-discovery and tap into that elusive wanderlust.

They briefly stay with George’s yuppie older brother before stumbling into Elysium, an idyllic collection of free spirits who move to the beat of their own drum circle and share sexual partners like they share their psychedelic drugs. This self-dubbed ‘intentional community’ is essentially a commune — a pot-scented orgy of trees and hugs.

Written and directed by David Wain, ‘Wanderlust’ best compares to a sketch comedy show à la ‘Saturday Night Live.’ It plays like a series of comic sketches — some funnier than others — that rely on clichés for cheap laughs. And as a pseudo-analysis of post-recession society, it runs the risk of taking itself too seriously and losing its humor in the process.

Much of the movie’s success comes from its unwillingness to compromise. Whereas most comedies would suffer from holding jokes an uncomfortable beat — or two or three — too long, the technique serves the zaniness that ‘Wanderlust’ maintains.You’d think that Rudd sitting silently on a toilet for five minutes would be overboard, but the jokes only get funnier the longer they overstay their welcome.

Fortunately, the film never takes anything seriously, not even the hippie lifestyle it gently lampoons. The bohemian hallmarks are there — nudists, bongs and incense — but never at the expense of finding good fun in bad taste. Much like its protagonists, the movie throws clothes and caution to the wind, resulting in a surprisingly fresh comedy.

On paper, the idea of two Type-A personalities discovering themselves in a tribe of peyote-imbibing hippies seems stereotypical and almost reductive. But onscreen, the tribe of hippies doubles as a tribe of genuinely talented comedic actors, whose commitment to the material breathes new life into this stale concept.

Aniston demonstrates that there’s more to her than her fading Rachel persona. ‘Wanderlust’ feels like her coming-out party as a real movie comedienne. She’s having more fun here than we’ve seen her have in a long time, especially when she lets loose in a bizarre but hilarious LSD-induced sequence in which plants cry and she flies out of a tree. Her chemistry with surrounding players, namely off-screen boyfriend Justin Theroux as the Jesus-faced commune leader, reminds us why she did so well on ‘Friends.’

However, Rudd is the film’s MVP and one of its few emotional centers. He takes the role of the typical straight guy and imbues it with a sweetness that stands out from the surrounding madness. His earnestness is somehow more convincing than his outing in last year’s ‘Our Idiot Brother,’ and he somehow manages to hold the whole unhinged mess together.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that he can’t shoulder his share of raunchiness. One scene in particular features Rudd giving a certain body part a very long and deranged pep talk, an obviously improvised sequence that stands out as the movie’s strangest but funniest moment.

‘Wanderlust’ almost stalls when it hits the most convenient plot point it can find: a corporation arrives, threatening to bulldoze Elysium for commercial development. However, Wain and company stay hell-bent on making the most comedy they can out of the hackneyed situation. And thankfully, after a couple of poop and penis sight gags later, they do.

dataroy@syr.edu

Published on February 29, 2012 at 12:00 pm