Quick Review: Our Idiot Brother

I'd like to thank Paul Rudd for starring in "Our Little Brother," because it gives me the excuse to show this picture again...

Oh, I could look at that all day. Anyway, Rudd is the title character, Ned, who's sort of a throwback to the 60s in that he has long hair and a beard and has a very casual and mellow outlook. He's selling organic food at a farmers' market when a uniformed police officer tricks Ned into selling him some pot. Boom, he's arrested and spends a few months in jail. He's released and is thrown out by his girlfriend, and after a brief stay with his mother Ned then bounces, one by one, from his mom's home to those of his three sisters (Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer). In each stop he causes great upheaval to his sisters' lives just by being himself: honest, trusting, and more than a little naive. Eventually, of course, things get resolved, but it's an interesting journey to get there. I don't think the trailers did this film justice. I expected a lot of stupidity but it's really a charming, sweet little film. My grade: B-plus.