I’ve been seeing a lot of promotion lately for Dinner for Schmucks,
the Jay Roach-directed comedy that opens this weekend, but all those
ads didn’t manage to give me a very clear idea of what the movie was
about. All that really stuck with me was the fact that one of the stars
was a distinctly odd-looking Steve Carell and that based on the quick
clips shown in the previews, it looked pretty stupid. I was much more
interested in Carell’s other movie, Despicable Me, but when my
friend suggested we go see the schmucks, I was game. It turned out to be
one of those movies I’m glad someone else suggested; I wouldn’t have
gone on my own, but I ended up really liking it.
While it is
Carell’s performance that really drives the action of the movie, Paul
Rudd is the main character here, which I found interesting, since I last
saw him in I Love You, Man,
in which he plays a man on the verge of marriage whose engagement and
life in general become overhauled when he meets the strange man who will
quickly become his best friend. In this movie, he’s in a solid
relationship, but he and artistic Frenchwoman Julie (Stephanie Szostak)
are not yet engaged, much to his dismay. Tim is a clever, resourceful
guy who is willing to do his homework in order to get ahead at the
office. When a promotion pops up, his initiative and extensive research
place him in an ideal opportunity to advance. But then complication
arise...
Those complications come mostly courtesy of Carell’s
Barry, a sweetly eccentric IRS agent who spends all of his free time
building dioramas and scouting out tiny, already-deceased residents to
fill them. Like most of Carell’s characters, Barry is endearingly naive,
with character quirks that cause him to appear quite moronic. He has
spectacles, an absurd set of teeth that cause him to talk strangely and
an absolute inability to pick up on most basic social cues. And once Tim
dramatically enters his life - in a manner that serves as a blatant
warning about the dangers of driving while using a cell phone - he’s
stuck with Barry, who is desperate to do all he can to assist his new
(and only) friend.
Tim immediately sees in Barry his ticket to
that bigger office, since he seems the perfect candidate for the
top-secret dinner upon which his promotion largely hinges. The
tradition? Each person from the office brings someone with a strange
ability to dinner, and by the end of the night, one of them will be
awarded a trophy. What the winner will be too clueless to realize is the
fact that he and his fellow guests have only been invited so these
executives can have a laugh at their expense. As soon as Julie learns of
the dinner, she is horrified, and this is the cause of the initial
friction between her and Tim. Barry sets off a series of mishaps
exacerbating their problems, but it all boils down to the fact that this
job has turned Tim into someone who does despicable things.
I
was surprised at how much I came to like Julie so quickly. In these
types of movies, there’s usually at least some question as to whether
the main character might be better off without his current girlfriend.
Usually there is a grating side to her personality, but Julie is utterly
charming in one of the few straightman roles in the movie. I’d never
seen Szostak in a movie before, but I’ll keep an eye out for her name;
her radiant performance as the vulnerable but fiercely moral Julie won
me over completely.
Also reeling me in was Flight of the Conchords‘
Jemaine Clement as Kieran, the artist whose show Julie is in the midst
of curating. Though I’ve found Clement hilarious ever since his run of
ads for Outback Steakhouse several years ago, I failed to recognize him
in the previews. That’s not so surprising, however, since he plays a
completely different character than the painfully awkward version of
himself I grew used to seeing on his short-lived HBO sit-com. This
long-haired incarnation of Clement bristles with brazen intensity. Julie
and Barry both refer to his appeal as “animal magnetism,” and he’s
certainly tapped into something visceral by surrounding himself with
exotic wildlife at his ranch.
Unflappable and virile, he
initially comes across as narcissistic since he is the focal point of
every one of his carefully composed photographs, which depict him in
animalistic costumes against provocative backdrops, but there’s
something very Zen about his approach to the world. He’s an oddball, to
be sure, but he’s also refreshingly honest and attuned to the emotions
of others, and although he’s a rival for Julie’s affections, I found it
impossible not to like him.
Although fellow FotC alum
Kristen Schaal never shares the screen with Clement, it’s fun to see
them both appear in the same movie. Her role is much smaller than his;
she plays Tim’s personal assistant, who desperately wants Tim to make a
play for power so she can move up to the seventh floor with him. Carell
isn’t the only familiar face from The Office,
either; Larry Wilmore, who plays a drab fellow from corporate trying to
clean up Michael Scott’s messes in several episodes, portrays an
officemate who would horrify that uber-politically correct character.
Among the many other minor players, the one who caught my eye most was
Patrick Fischler. Here, he’s Vincenzo, a bandaged vulture handler whose
control over his bird is less than complete, while I know him as
beady-eyed Dharma drone Phil on LOST.
Exuding a sort of smarmy executive charm is Bruce Greenwood as Tim’s
boss Lance Fender, who tries to dismiss this young go-getter but finds
himself increasingly impressed. While this is a man who seems to delight
in the misfortunes of others, his charisma makes Lance’s crass nature
harder to see. Same goes for Mueller (David Walliams), the Swiss
businessman whose support is so crucial to the future success of the
company. Mueller comes across as very sophisticated, and he’s pleased
with Tim’s smooth attempts to court his favor, but before the movie is
over, we get to see just how undignified he can be.
In many ways, this movie reminded me of the comedy What About Bob?,
in which a psychiatrist played by Richard Dreyfuss has his perfect
weekend obliterated by the affable patient who crashes his family
getaway. This uptight professional on the cusp of the greatest triumph
of his career watches in horror as his wife and children become attached
to disaster-prone Bob, whose presence poses a grave threat to his big
break. Barry is an incredibly sympathetic character, but some of his
actions truly are idiotic, and when Tim’s mouth twitches in suppressed
rage, it’s easy to understand why.
It’s a comedy of
extravagant errors, and the resulting wanton destruction is my least
favorite element of the movie. That sort of thing always makes me cringe
a bit, whether it’s in Mouse Hunt or Bean. Both of those movies aim at a younger audience; Dinner for Schmucks
is clearly for adults, with no characters under the age of 20 and a
fair amount of sensuality. There’s also a smattering of profanity,
though that’s kept to a minimum; more potentially offensive is a scene
involving Barry’s artistic representation of The Last Supper, but
everything Barry does is so earnest that while Tim’s reactions bugged
me, the initial artwork seems almost reverent.
Barry, for all
his eccentricities, is an exceptionally talented artisan. His attention
to detail is astounding, as we see in the whimsical opening sequence set
to the Beatles’ Fool on the Hill.
It may sound a bit morbid to turn taxidermied mice into works of art,
but his intricate displays pop with a candy-coated joy that reminds me
of Pushing Daisies.
This is a lonely man who has not had much success in life, but his
ability to see the best in every situation clearly comes across in his
artwork.
While I’ve become a pretty solid fan of Carell in recent years, I had serious doubts about Dinner for Schmucks.
It’s a gentler film than I expected, and while it does have its crude
and painfully disastrous moments, I spent a majority of the movie with a
smile on my face. My conclusion? This bunch of schmucks did all right.
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