You, Me & Dupree Review
Posted by George H. Sirois on 07.14.2006
Behold the Power of the Owen-ness!
During the summer of 2005, while we were given Sith Lords, Dark Knights, Chocolate Factories, and Wars of Worlds, we also had two heavyweight comedies battling it out for the funniest film of the year. In one corner, we had Wedding Crashers starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, and in the other, we had The 40-Year-Old Virgin, starring Steve Carell and Seth Rogen. Even though Virgin had more than its share of fans who preferred it over Crashers (I fall into that category), Vince and Owen took the prize in both box office and at the MTV Movie Awards.
Since the surprise smash of Wedding Crashers, Vince and Owen went off to star in their own separate films. Vince did The Break-Up with Jennifer Aniston, which received mixed reviews and did very well at the box office. Owen did You, Me & Dupree, which opens this Friday and took me completely by surprise by becoming the funniest movie I’ve seen since The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
Owen stars as Dupree, the best friend to Carl Peterson (Matt Dillon) and the best man at Carl’s wedding to Molly Thompson (Kate Hudson). After Carl and Molly’s honeymoon, Carl receives a promotion from his boss, who also happens to be Molly’s father, Mr. Thompson (Michael Douglas), and he is given the chance to supervise development of a new neighborhood. He even has an office. Before Carl goes home to celebrate with Molly, he stops by the local dive bar for “guy night” and he finds out that Dupree has been living in the local dive bar since he had been fired from his job and evicted from his home. Reaching out to his best friend, Carl invites Dupree to come home and crash on their couch for a week until he finds a new job.
Once Dupree gets himself situated, he spends most of his time goofing off with the local kids and messing up Carl and Molly’s house. Carl is, of course, stuck in the middle of this since he’s torn between his new wife and his old friend, and both sides are playing a serious game of tug-of-war with him as the rope. Dupree’s words hit Carl hard when he tries to channel the old feelings of freedom that both of them shared when they were growing up. The only difference now is that Carl had to grow up and is starting to cave into the pressure of both his home life and his work life, while Dupree is repeatedly begging Carl to just release his inner –ness, which is a word according to him. “It’s your name with a ness at the end!”
The key factor that made me really enjoy You, Me & Dupree was the well-roundedness of all four major characters. Something about each of them makes you like them just as much as they don’t. Dupree is a mooching, self-absorbed, lazy goof-off, but at the same time, when it needs to, his own “inner-ness” comes out and he becomes truly likeable without becoming contrived. Molly comes off like the typical new wife, trying to mold her husband into becoming something the complete opposite of the man she fell in love with. But as the movie goes on, especially during the second half, she becomes much more patient and calm and even learns more about Dupree than Carl ever knew, such as his first name. Even Michael Douglas’ character, Mr. Thompson, is someone that you want to go out of your way to impress, someone you want to have like you, no matter how creepy he can be. One minute, you’re happy for Carl to be given a hug from the man who was President Andrew Shepard and the next, you remember that Carl’s also getting a hug from the man who played Gordon Gekko.
And then there’s Carl. Hardly the eye of the storm, you can’t help but feel sorry for him as the stress of being pulled into all these different directions is taking its toll on his sleep, his patience and eventually his sanity. But he never crosses the line and turns into an asshole. Throughout the whole movie, you want him to be able to balance the workload he is given with, the pressure to be the husband that Molly deserves, and the desire to be the best friend to Dupree, even if the man almost burned his new home down. The pathos for his character is definitely there, and Matt Dillon makes a great straight man to Owen’s show-stealing Dupree.
The other major star of this movie was its tone. Never did the movie really push the boundaries of its PG-13 rating, and it was pretty refreshing to see. It had every opportunity to present a funny moment that was based on shock value, as we had seen with both Virgin & Crashers last year, but instead directors Anthony & Joe Russo and writer Mike LeSieur pulled back and concentrated on the characters and the story. The humor naturally evolved from both, and the result was a movie that practically caters to everyone. There are the few moments of toilet/masturbation gags, there’s the good old-fashioned slapstick, there’s of course the humor that comes from misunderstanding, and at the center of it all is Owen Wilson at full volume as Dupree, someone who would come off as malicious if he had any idea of what he was doing.
I don’t want to give much more away; I’d rather let you discover the surprise of the year for yourself. Just keep an eye out for the legendary Seth Rogen as a husband whipped so badly he should have been named Steadman, the handling of Dupree’s girlfriend Mandy, a character that we never see but apparently a lot of people know, and a show-stopping dream sequence - with both Kate Hudson’s outfit and a surprise cameo appearance - that’s worth the price of admission on its own.
The 411: I had no idea I would enjoy this movie as much as I did, and maybe it’s the shock of it, but I came out of the theater not only really enjoying it, but looking forward to seeing it again. Despite what the ads and trailers would have you believe, this is more than just a "What About Bob" re-make. I know we have Clerks II, Talladega Nights, My Super Ex-Girlfriend and others of the genre coming out in the next several weeks, but for now, You, Me & Dupree holds the top spot of being the funniest movie of the year.
