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<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong><\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em><\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Our Idiot Brother<\/strong><\/p>\n
The great \u201cnature vs. nurture\u201d debate rages on, with both sides periodically gaining or losing ground based on whatever new study has been released. The new comedy \u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019 wades into this discussion with the question: Are hippies born or are they made?<\/p>\n
If you look at the siblings at the center of \u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019, the answer is clearly the latter. Paul Rudd plays Ned, a long-haired, trusting, perpetually positive biodynamic farmer who finds himself in jail after selling marijuana to a uniformed police officer. After being released and unable to move back to the farm where he lived with his girlfriend, Ned decides to accept the somewhat insincere invitations of his three sisters and comes to stay with them in New York until he figures out what to do next.<\/p>\n
Through Ned\u2019s sisters, it becomes obvious that Ned\u2019s blissful, relaxed attitude is not a product of genetics or childhood indoctrination. There\u2019s Liz, played by Emily Mortimer, a tense, overprotective mother who absorbs the dismissive, passive-aggressive barbs of her snooty documentarian husband, played by Steve Coogan. Elizabeth Banks plays Miranda, a harsh, ambitious writer for Vanity Fair who\u2019s willing to use dodgy tactics to land a big story. The youngest of the siblings is Natalie, played by Zooey Deschanel, a bisexual bohemian type who is trying to get her act together as she lives with a pack of roommates and her lawyer girlfriend, played by Rashida Jones.<\/p>\n
One of the most enjoyable things about \u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019 is its reluctance to paint its characters as one-note caricatures. Ned\u2019s sisters are not bad or horribly screwed up \u2014 they\u2019ve simply drifted apart from each other (as many of us do) as they\u2019ve become more absorbed with the duties, drama and goals of their adult lives. <\/p>\n
The easiest thing to do with a character like Ned would be to paint him as some sort of noble, magical fool akin to Forrest Gump, a character whose childlike cluelessness and decreased mental capacity were disturbingly portrayed as a source of profound, simplistic wisdom. While Forrest was born that way, what makes Ned interesting is that his sunny view of humanity and his unfailing sincerity are not from genetics or upbringing, but are the results of conscious decisions. For whatever reason, Ned has chosen to live his life by a philosophy that requires him to be as honest, generous, and open as he can while choosing to always see the best in people. And as you might guess, it\u2019s not easy, especially when Ned\u2019s willingness to listen and his lack of judgment make him a depository for everyone\u2019s secrets, and we watch as Ned and his family struggle with the consequences of his beliefs.<\/p>\n
\u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019 is nicely shot, avoiding the bright sitcom lighting common in most comedies. The acting is great across the board, particularly the strong supporting cast of Jones, Coogan, TJ Miller as an agreeable hippy, and Sterling Brown as Ned\u2019s parole officer. But this is really Rudd\u2019s film, which has found a terrific way to use and develop the non-threatening niceness that often gets Rudd cast as a straight man.<\/p>\n
Despite what the ad campaign for \u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019 says, the movie is not about how much better the world would be if we were all like Ned. It\u2019s more about how we should never become so self-involved that we\u2019re unwilling to be even briefly inconvenienced by a family member in need, especially one as well-meaning as Ned. That may not be a groundbreaking concept, but \u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019 is simply a small, light crowd-pleasing comedy that isn\u2019t trying to change the world, but has a lot of laughs, heart, and great performances. And there\u2019s nothing idiotic about that.<\/p>\n
\u2018Our Idiot Brother\u2019 is rated R and opens today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-program"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}