It was beginning to look like I’d never type these words, but Jennifer Aniston has finally been in an excellent movie! And not just an excellent movie–but a better movie than any other Friends alumni has made.
It was beginning to look like I’d never type these words, but Jennifer Aniston has finally been in an excellent movie! And not just an excellent movie–but a better movie than any other Friends alumni has made.
Just as with Jason Bateman in The Switch and Owen Wilson in Marley & Me, We’re The Millers works largely because of her chemistry with her co-star, Jason Sudeikis. Aniston plays an exotic dancer whose cash-flow problems lead her to set aside her contempt for Sudeikis and to accept a “job” pretending to be his wife as a cover for smuggling pot from Mexico to Denver.
Also enlisted to play family members are Emma Roberts and relative newcomer Will Poulter, who steals the show. Whether he’s rapping as a nerdy Colorado white kid, being bitten on the testicle by a tarantula, or being taught to kiss by Aniston’s character, he’s the MVP in most of the scenes he’s in. Despite being a Brit in real life, he nails his role, and his dialect is rock solid.
The always rock solid Sudeikis really turns it up a notch in this role. Not since Schwarzenegger has anyone had a less marquee friendly name, but in Millers he turns in a performance that almost guarantees its future in lights. When his character is dragged before a drug trafficker by two “enforcers,” he’s as flip and sarcastic as Bill Murray at his peak, and he’s equally effective in the scenes with Aniston, and his “kids.” Sudeikis is one of the funniest reactive comic actors in years, and this film showcases his versatility. The guy almost deserves to be engaged to Olivia Wilde.
We’re The Millers is a road picture, not unlike National Lampoon’s Vacation or The Hangover, and it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath. Comedians are not big laughers, but I laughed out loud in double digits, which is as rare as tofu-flavored beef.
The screenplay is packed with jokes and gags and the film’s pacing is also great. The direction is perfect for the kind of movie it is, because you don’t notice it, and I mean that as a compliment. A spider-cam up someone’s leg isn’t needed in a movie that’s this well written and performed. There are four authors credited in the screenplay. Bob Fisher and Steve Faber’s previous high-point was Wedding Crashers, and Sean Anders and John Morris collaborated on 2008’s Sex Drive.
There are outtakes at the end, as well, and this writer overheard one moviegoer say the last gag in the outtakes made her laugh harder than anything else in the film. I wouldn’t go that far, but they’re definitely worth watching, as is We’re The Millers.
Lord Carrett