We're The Millers
Cert: 15 / 110 mins / Dir. Rawson Marshall Thurber
The main strength at the core of Rawson Thurber's heist / farce / road-movie is that its principal leads, Aniston and Sudekis, make for throughly a convincing stripper and drug-dealer respectively, and constantly look comedically out of place when they're in their 'mom and dad' roles. Because with that much of a twist so early in the film, the audience is left reeling with no clear idea of how things will pan out.
No, wait. Not that. The opposite. The exact opposite of everything I just said. Yes, that's it.
Seriously though, if you can get past the terrible mis-casting of the leads and the clockwork plot that links the set-pieces together, it's not an altogether bad comedy. Mostly. And despite the actor and the character failing to combine, Jason Sudekis is the highlight of the film, with the best lines and the best delivery by far. Will Poulter puts in a good turn as his 'son', Kenny, but is limited by six writers all pulling in different directions. Jennifer Aniston and Emma Roberts suffer the same fate, but with the added disadvantage of having little-to-no character development to work with. Outside of 'The Millers', a few extra laughs (mostly those awkward, nervous ones) come from the addition of Kathryn Hahn and Nick Offerman's Fitzgerald family, a trio of repressed, conservative fellow RV'ers. Unfortunately, even the best of their scenes is underscored by that feel of blatant ad-libbing*1, which lets down their otherwise solid performances.
Listen to me, banging on like any of this shit even matters when you've got Jennifer Aniston in her pants. Twice. Actually, the very thing that's been the cornerstone of marketing this film turns out to be the one that's the most squirm-inducing. I'm not doubting that she's got the looks and the moves to carry it off, but there's something… undignified about the scenes with Jen in her scanties. I'm not sure why exactly, but I think that she's capable of better things than this. It never gets to exploitative-level, but you get the feeling that with any other actress, it would have.
Listen to me, banging on like any of this shit even matters when all you want to is watch a lairy comedy with your friends and a few beers. And that's exactly what We're The Millers is for; perfectly reasonable for viewing at home, not so much for paying a tenner each to do it in a cinema. Apart from anything else, the quiet isolation of the auditorium did leave me thinking "erm, that is not the dressing room of a downtown Denver strip club" and "erm, that is not the apartment of a drug-dealer, no matter how principled he apparently is" and "Wow, Emma Roberts basically got paid for turning up and standing in the background, didn't she?"
Ultimately, We're The Millers is consistently chucklesome, but the gags are on a separate track from the rest of a disjointed screenplay. Unless you're smitten with Aniston, you can safely put this in your rental queue.
Pretty much.
The laughing part was mostly satisfactory.
Not a clue. Probably, I imagine.
DVD. Rental tops, but this has got an Asda '£3' sticker written all over it..
Nah.
At some point, but not in a hurry.
There isn't, no.
How long do you think it took to film the segments featuring Ed Helms? I reckon two days, tops.
*1 You've seen this with Melissa McCarthy and Danny McBride. It's that desperate, panicked look in their eyes where they've gone off script, stalled for too long and then said 'fuck' or 'vagina', hoping this will pass as a punchline.
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• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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Emma Roberts :-) That is all X
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