Our idiot brother

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Movie
German title Our idiot brother
Original title Our idiot brother
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2011
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Jesse Peretz
script Evgenia Peretz
David Schisgall
production Anthony Bregman
Peter Saraf
Marc Turtletaub
music Eric D. Johnson
Nathan Larson
camera Yaron Orbach
cut Jacob Craycroft
Andrew Mondshein
occupation

Our Idiot Brother is a 2011 American tragic comedy based on a script by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall . The independent film , a low budget production , was directed by Jesse Peretz .

action

Ned Rochlin is a kind and honest person who always believes in what is good in people. As well as Officer Washburn asks him for 20 dollars hemp to sell. Ned is arrested and sent to prison for the next eight months. He was released on probation because of good conduct. However, he then finds out that his ex-girlfriend Janet is now living with Billy and refuses to give up his own dog, Willie Nelson . But Billy makes him the offer that he can sleep in the goat barn for at least the next two months. All he has to do is find the monthly rent of $ 500. Since Ned is penniless, he first visits his family with his three sisters Liz, Nathalie and Miranda. They too, like his probation officer Omar Coleman, think he's an idiot. And although Liz and her husband Dylan also think he's a fool, they let him live with them as long as he looks after their son River and helps with Dylan's documentary for $ 250 a week.

While he helps River get closer to his secret desire to finally learn a martial art, he assists Dylan and is treated like an idiot. Shortly afterwards he has to help his sister Miranda, who is a journalist for Vanity Fair . Although she desperately needs his help as a driver to interview Lady Arabella Galloway, she too treats him like an idiot. Only Arabella likes him and invites him to a benefit event. When Ned's lesbian sister Nathalie worries, her painter friend Christian advises her to visit the spiritual group of visionaries of the future . Everyone feels comfortable at the event, only Ned cannot cope with the fact that he should have an illumination in a winner's dome (a kind of sauna). He has to be picked up in an ambulance when he is dehydrated .

Soon he is available again for Dylan and he catches him doing an interview with the ballerina Tatiana naked. Since he always believes in the good in people, he thinks Dylan's explanation of creating more intimacy in order to get better answers is plausible. When River's private school interview doesn't go as hoped either, Dylan persuades his wife, Liz, to kick Ned out. Liz gives him some money and sends him away. He ends up with Miranda, who doesn't even want to take him in. Only when he tells her without ulterior motive about Dylan's nude interview and the story of Lady Arabella's ex-boyfriend, does she let him live with her. But Ned doesn't want to stay long. He himself wants nothing more than to get Willie Nelson back. So he asks the lawyer Cindy, his sister Nathalie's partner, for help. This encourages him and wants to support him in the future.

On a subsequent family visit, Liz learns from Miranda that Dylan is having an affair. Instead of helping Liz, the sisters quarrel. They blame Ned for it, even though he is outside playing on the trampoline with Cindy and River. Then Miranda and her best friend Jeremy argue, because Ned has told both of them without ulterior motive what one thinks of the other. Liz and Dylan are also about to have an argument, but Dylan disappears before he loses his temper. Nathalie is pregnant by Christian and doesn't dare to tell Cindy about it; she lies to Ned that everything is fine. Subsequently, Ned refuses to give a signature to confirm the truth of the story about Lady Arabella. He doesn't think it's a good idea, knowing that with this story he would harm Arabella. Miranda resents that now. When Cindy learns from Ned (she's helping him kidnap Willie Nelson for him) that Nathalie is pregnant, the argument between everyone has broken out and everyone blames Ned for his misfortune.

They let him feel this during the family game evening that follows. While Ned's mother and River play exuberantly charades with him , the three sisters incite him and comment on everything cynically. For the first time they experience how angry and angry Ned can get. He tells them how much they ruined his evening. He told his probation officer that he was smoking pot with his neighbor; so the police appear and arrest him for violating the probation requirements. Of course, the family tries to get him out of prison on bail; but Ned refuses. Then they come up with the idea of picking up Willie Nelson at Janet's so that Ned has a motive to get out.

Eventually, Ned retires with Billy and Willie Nelson to open a small wax candle business. He gets to know a friendly young lady who calls her dog Dolly Parton ...

criticism

The film critic AO Scott wrote in the New York Times : The film is a "bittersweet indie-like study of two adult siblings". This "thin and hardly convincing film" can be viewed in particular thanks to the "efficient direction [...], the charm and skill of the actors and the script, which is peppered with wit and insight". Although many scenes in the film are "too simple and sentimental", he thinks there are "a handful of scenes that are cheeky, funny and surprising".

The renowned film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars in the Chicago Sun-Times on the grounds that the film was “nice” and the protagonist was “sweet”, even though it “wouldn't work without Paul Rudd.” He felt it also as "refreshing that a comedy doesn't hate its characters and wraps them up in fecal language and sexual impossibilities".

In Time magazine , Mary Pols praised the "gentle, clever comedy" in which there are no humiliating moments and fecal humor. He is even "crazier and lovelier than a Woody Allen movie ."

The renowned film critic James Berardinelli only gave the film two out of four stars because the film was "tame and rather bland". His laughs are "half-hearted" and Perez would "waste the comedic talent of Paul Rudd." "Apart from Ned, the film is" full of hideous characters "and simply" cannot develop any convincing drama. " which is not bad, but is still a waste of time. "

At that time , Birgit Roschy judged that the film was "airy and unsentimental". “The light-footed staging avoids thigh-thumping humor as well as big drama or antics.” While Ned is sent on an “odyssey through the urban biotopes”, he is not exposed to ridicule and “mostly the reactions of others are funny.” The film even throws a "wonderfully unexcited look at couple relationships that, as the happy ending shows, literally came down to the dog."

Thomas Groh from the taz also discovered positive things: “In the balancing act between the coarse Apatow and the younger indie comedy, which looks at the attempts at furnishing the life of the thirtysomethings sometimes contemplatively, sometimes painfully," Our Idiot Brother "allows for the unfit for life of a biographically happy stranded man convulsive attempts to make more of oneself collide in a mostly enjoyable way. "

The TV magazine prisma wrote about the film: “Even if some scenes seem quite naive and trite, Paul Rudd is the most charming naive here. Unfortunately, the story is often told in leaps and bounds, great moments are cut to linger in rather boring moments. With better timing, this might have been great fun. That leaves at least a few funny scenes. "

The lexicon of the international film summarized as follows: "Warm-hearted tragic comedy about a" pure fool ", which taps various life plans for their weak points and relies less on loud gags than on sensitive character drawings."

publication

The film opened in US theaters on August 26, 2011 and grossed almost $ 25 million at the box office in the US with a production budget of just over US $ 5 million. In Germany, the film was released on May 17, 2012; it was due to be released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 19th .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ AO Scott : Our Idiot Brother (2011) on nytimes.com from August 25, 2011 (English), accessed on September 23, 2012
  2. ↑ Roger Ebert : Our Idiot Brother on suntimes.com of August 24, 2012, accessed on September 23, 2012
  3. ↑ Mary Pols: Our Idiot Brother: Paul Rudd on a Couch-Crash Course on time.com from August 23, 2011, accessed on September 23, 2012
  4. ↑ James Berardinelli : Our Idiot Brother on reelviews.com from August 24, 2012, accessed on September 23, 2012
  5. ↑ Birgit Roschy: Eulenspiegel between the Lohas of New York on zeit.de from May 15, 2012, accessed on November 23, 2012
  6. ↑ Thomas Groh: For eight months in the kittchen on taz.de from May 15, 2012, accessed on September 23, 2012
  7. ↑ Our Idiot Brother on prisma.de , accessed on September 23, 2012
  8. ↑ Our Idiot Brother. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ Our Idiot Brother (2011) at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed September 21, 2012