Week Of July 10, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

July 12, 2006

You, Me & Dupree maintains a surprisingly unique place in this summer market. There have been other comedies that suck. And there will be more. But the critical backlash, no doubt, that particularly eviscerates this mess of a comedy it because it is so utterly lacking in ambition. This is to be distinguished from Little Man, which is utterly lacking in couth.

The four comedies so far this summer (I'm not including Just My Luck because I never saw it and it barely seems to count as a comedy) have all been flawed. The only one that's been well reviewed was The Devil Wears Prada, which I would argue got a pass because it had enough elements that appealed to the urbane nature of critics - Streep, Tucci, Blunt and the fashion. Really, people's positions on Prada are equally consistent to the negatives on Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Everyone seems to agree that the trips mentioned above are great, that the central figure is terribly underwritten, that the ending stinks, and that the fashions are great… and that many, many people will forgive the bad for the sake of the good.

Nacho Libre got a spiritual pass from most of us, even if we panned it, because we love Jack Black and because we want to embrace the minimalist stylizations of Jared Hess. There may not be anyplace for his style to go, but I, for one, want to see what happens next.

Click got slammed as all Adam Sandler movies do. It was a brain damaged derivation on A Christmas Carol with the remote control as the ghosts of Christmas past, present & future. The big error was that the third act took control away from the star and therefore, eliminated the chance of any really satisfying redemption because if you aren't responsible for the bad, you can't be responsible for the good. Also nightmarish, the movie made Kate Beckinsale into nothing but a piece of ass. A lovely piece of ass, but this is a story about humans and by dehumanizing her the whole movie was diminished.

And The Break-Up, which was barely a comedy, tried to mix dramatic reality and very broad comedy… to blur into a hot pot of stink.

But in all four of these cases, there is a core audience that turned up in spite of all the flaws. That… and people want to go to comedies in the summer.

You, Me & Dupree was another idea that made sense. A by-the-book comedy about "the guest who wouldn't leave." And the version with Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson and Kate Hudson might have been a big, albeit obvious, hit.

The problem is not that Matt Dillon - or Owen Wilson or Kate Hudson - is bad or unappealing. The problem is that the basic conceit of the movie was bent out of shape by the actors and the bigger issue of "Who is the star?"

Owen Wilson is a great spice for a movie. And he is capable of being a leading man in certain situations, as we saw in Wedding Crashers. Here, though, he is playing a spice role but is given the leading man treatment. Worse, Matt Dillon - who is in the role of being the "regular guy" in this triangle - is not particularly suited for that role. He, also, is a great spice. And as a leading man, he has a very specific range.

If you are going to be very SPOILER conscious, you might want to skip out here, but I don't think it's a very significant issue.

Dillon's character arc is that he is the Nice Guy who gives his best friend, Dupree, a break and ends up paying for it by being driven crazy by his new marriage, by his friend's invasiveness, and by his father-in-law (Michael Douglas) who owns the company for which he works. We have to believe that this guy will become a paranoid nut job by the third act. A classic Ben Stiller role.

And Wilson's role… this should have been one of the great comedy driving characters ever… it's an old Bill Murray supporting role. But you'll notice that as Murray became a lead, his characters became meaner and in need of redemption… until he got older and he just needed a break. It's an old John Belushi supporting role, including the kindness. But there is a reason why Bluto had a limited amount of screentime in Animal House.

But because of Wedding Crashers, Wilson's character ends up eating the movie. Instead of being Matt Dillon in There's Something About Mary or Stiffler in American Pie or Will Ferrell in Old School, he is the lead. And, as most spin-offs of classic TV comedies teach us, it doesn't work. (Of course, there are the Frasiers, but part of what made that show work was that Fraser was not part of the lead group of four or five characters on Cheers.)

Kate Hudson's character is pretty much the right one, though I would prefer that she be given a bit more, making her a fuller character. But that is not what sinks this film.

The balance of all of this is delicate. Michael Douglas, who is game and capable of delivering, gets hung out to dry because he is working to Wilson's energy and he does most of his scenes with Dillon and Hudson. There is a sub-story with the neighborhood kids that would have worked if ending up with one of the kids' mothers or running a child care would be enough for the Dupree character. (Again, this is the Steve Zahn role.) But it's not enough for the guy in Wedding Crashers.

I expect a lot of critics to be harsher than me. I could see the cars crashing in slow motion as I watched and I felt sympathy for the filmmakers. But not everyone will, or should.

That said, the real decision is in the hands of the audience. And we will see where that goes. Unfortunately for the film, it is heading right into the bulk of summer comedies in the next few weeks and, starting with Little Man, they go right for the gross-out, wild concept audience that is close to where You, Me & Dupree was heading.

And that is how I got in touch with my Dave-ness.

E Me.

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