Movies

Light and funny, Our Idiot Brother is an easy watch thanks to well-shaped, realistic characters and an entertaining story with moral fibre.

After selling marijuana to a police officer, silly Ned (Paul Rudd) is jailed for eight months. Returning to the organic farm where his girlfriend lives and works, he finds she's moved and he's got no place to stay. He calls on his three successful sisters for support, but his inability to keep the truth in, even when it becomes too revealing, and his overall happiness with life gets a little too much for each sister, and they start to blame him for their problems.

The story goes hard on some factors, like stereotyping the sisters as "the workaholic" (Elizabeth Banks), "the uptight mum" (Emily Mortimer) and "the freewheeling artsy one" (Zooey Deschanel). But it jumps from quarrelling siblings to happy families too quickly, leaving a lot of guesswork about how the characters come together.

Luckily it's not too hard to grasp that Ned is the brother that frees their souls from their burdens, while simply only ever needing a place to stay.

Rudd (I Love You, Man, Knocked Up) really works as the happy-go-lucky brother, while the sisters all play their stereotypes well, but what adds most to the story is the believable family dynamics at play.

Special mention to Kathryn Hahn as Janet, the ironic hippie ex-girlfriend who lives simply, has dreadlocks and addresses people as 'man', but she's still a bitchy person, showing that inner peace is a lot more than just using the word 'peace' instead of 'f---'.

'It's better to be honest' is the end-of-the-day lesson, as each character finds out the hard way, based on how their not-such-an-idiot brother lives his life.