Paul Rudd (Ned) has no problem portraying a loveable, trusting idiot in “Our Idiot Brother,” whose main goal in life is to get his dog, Willie Nelson, back from his ex-girlfriend. Ned loses the dog, his home, his job and his girlfriend when he is sentenced to prison for selling marijuana to a uniformed officer. When he is released after nine months he seems to begin a mission to destroy the lives of each of his three sisters. And he can’t help being an idiot, even when his intentions are good.
He blabs everyone’s secrets, counts money on the New York City Subway and then hands it a stranger to hold while he wipes up spilled coffee. Then he tells his parole officer, who he sees as a therapist, that he got high with the kid across the street. But he doesn’t care that he’s an idiot because changing would require him to become jaded and untrusting like the rest of New York. Instead, his family and the people around him need to learn to be more like him.
It’s hard not to love Paul Rudd. He is funny, warm and endearing as the fun to watch Ned. But the women in the movie are basically one-dimensional stereotypical characters. There’s the hippie ex, the confused lesbian sister and her very masculine partner, the rigid workaholic and the clueless housewife with the adulterous husband. It’s a shame because it’s a waste of talents such as Zooey Deschanel and Elizabeth Banks.
And thanks to the screenwriting of David Schisgall, a documentary film and TV writer, it sometimes has the feel of a slow-moving documentary film without structure. It won’t make you laugh out loud but you’ll still have fun following Ned around as he tries to get a life with Willie Nelson in it.
