George and Linda are an overextended, stressed out Manhattan couple. After George is downsized out of his job, they find themselves with only one option: to move in with George’s awful brother in Atlanta. On the way there, George and Linda stumble upon Elysium, an idyllic community populated by colorful characters who embrace a different way of looking at things ... Is Elysium the fresh start George and Linda need? Or will the change of perspective cause more problems than it solves?
Reviews
The Los Angeles Times
Betsy Sharkey
“The director also seems to have found a new comfort zone. Wain has always brought a kind of zany sensibility to his films, but he has never seemed more confident coloring outside the lines. Not all of the risks he takes pay off but enough work to make "Wanderlust" a trip worth taking.”
24/02/2012
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Empire Magazine
Kim Newman
“The new-age gags get old quick, but director Wain and a competent cast keep the jokes coming – Rudd stealing the show with some excruciating dirty talk that would give The Hangover boys a run for their money.”
27/02/2012
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The Guardian
Peter Bradshaw
“There's a great deal of cheerfully excessive bad taste in this broad comedy.”
01/03/2012
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The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
“Linda and George don’t burn with the yearning to travel that the title suggests, yet like other Americans seeking simplicity and maybe a chicken coop out back, they want off the road, at least for a while. There’s something touching about this desire, though Mr. Wain doesn’t let Linda and George fly their freak flags for long. This seems less of a fear of a vegan planet and more a question of boys being boys.”
23/02/2012
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The Times
Wendy Ide
“Milks the comedy of the yoghurt-nurturing alternative lifestyle for all its worth. The supporting cast are crafted out of tie-dye and crocheted hemp and many of the lines are savagely funny. But as the film progresses, the momentum slows and you start to wish that writer Ken Marino and writer-director David Wain would step away from the easy target of Elysium’s “Intentional Community” and concentrate on developing the story.”
02/03/2012
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Total Film
Neil Smith
“After the flak they took in Martha Marcy May Marlene, it’s nice to see at least one film give cults the benefit of the doubt.”
28/02/2012
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Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday
“Free love, at least one nudist, and an alarming lack of privacy are amongst the predictable plot points in this strained comedy.
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26/02/2012
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The Daily Telegraph
Tim Robey
“Too often it’s basically just improvising on the spot, and we’re never wholly fooled into thinking it’s going anywhere. Justin Theroux is playing a device, not a person, as the sharkish alpha male who abruptly decides to screw everyone over. Still, it’s the rare instance where the amount of fun they clearly had on set crosses that elusive membrane into the movie, giving us the steadiest stream of laughs since Bridesmaids.
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01/03/2012
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The Sunday Times
Edward Porter
“A better than average gig for its female star, Jennifer Aniston, but only par for the course for its male lead, Paul Rudd.”
04/03/2012
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The New Yorker
David Denby
“As broad and obvious as Wanderlust is, it’s often very funny.
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05/03/2012
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The Independent
Anthony Quinn
“The longer it goes on the less enjoyable it becomes, with the counterpoint of spiritual fulfilment versus materialistic emptiness lost beneath an increasingly shrill and fatuous plot.”
02/03/2012
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The Evening Standard
David Sexton
“Wanderlust is no more than a broad sitcom in one episode, played for laughs that don’t always come, even when elderly nudists are running around showing just how wobbly the human body can be.
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02/03/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Nicholas Barber
“It's not a bad fish-out-of-water premise, even if it could have been written 30 years ago, but the film spends so much time in Manhattan and Atlanta that most of the Elysium scenes are squeezed into a montage, and an awfully predictable montage at that. ”
04/03/2012
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The Observer
Philip French
“he film is a humourless embarrassment, the cliche situations and flat dialogue decorated but not embellished by the envelope-pushing obscenity traditionally associated with its producer Judd Apatow.”
04/03/2012
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The Daily Mail
Chris Tookey
“There is indeed a happy ending, but only because it arrives just before one has caused oneself incurable brain damage by banging one’s head on the seat in front in frustration at the wasted opportunities and pathetic attempts to please the lowest common denominator of American teenager.”
02/03/2012
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Time Out
Nigel Floyd
“Less funny than watching a penguin die from testicular cancer. Which, as it happens, is the subject of a documentary New York filmmaker Linda fails to pitch to HBO.”
28/02/2012
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