Wanderlust

Directed by David Wain

(R)

**

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This uneven comedy tries but never quite reaches the “cleverly raucous state” it aspires to, said Claudia Puig in USA Today. “Some of the players are endearingly goofy,” but the story “wanders aimlessly” and “runs some weak gags into the ground.” Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston star as married New Yorkers who flee the city following a financial setback. After a brief stay in suburbia with a racist family member, they decide to try living in a free-loving hippy commune. Rudd proves to be perfect as “an uptight fish out of water,” putting his “congeniality and improvisatorial brio” to good use when faced with having to share his wife and use doorless toilets, said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. Aniston’s flat performance, on the other hand, “does little to disprove that she’s still a star more suited to TV.” The movie also wastes a premise that could have provided real insights into competing visions of the American dream, said Nathan Rabin in the A.V. Club. The hippies are all warmed-over stereotypes, and “any aspirations to satire or social commentary get lost in the film’s all-too-easy comedy.”