Toi et Moi... et Duprée

Marriages can be hypocritical, and the blame always falls on the opposite party. Thus, when a marriage is portrayed in a movie, the protagonist is sometimes hard to identify. This is the case in You, Me, and Dupree, which presents all of its characters at once but gives us no one to root for. Surely they have their positive qualities, but unfortunately they are blindsided by the negative ones.

If one specific character cannot be our favorite, then we must equally support all of them: "You," Kate Hudson's Molly, is betrothed to "Me," Matt Dillon's Carl, who works for his father- in-law, Micheal Douglas' Mr. Thompson (okay, he can be "and"), and is best friends with Owen Wilson's "Dupree." Four principles, no protagonist. We want everyone to be happy, but they're just so hard to like.

Their involvement with each other begins when Dupree moves in with the newly-wed couple of Carl and Molly, who seem reluctant but generous enough to give him shelter for a few nights. Being an unmotivated leech, however, Dupree moves right in and begins making his presence more permanent than Kate and Molly are comfortable with. This sets the scene for some funny moments involving Dupree's befriending of all the neighborhood children, who probably share his intellectual level, but most of the Dupree-jokes involve feces, nudity, or sex, alone or otherwise. Toilet humor or not, it serves to buttress the point that Dupree just is not a likable person.

Lucky, then, that he's not the main focus of the story. That honor goes to Carl, who is simultaneously dealt two difficult situations: Dupree fowling his nest and Mr. Thompson trying to overlord his marriage to Molly, even suggesting that Carl voluntarily sterilize himself. We get the feeling that Mr. Thompson would take pleasure in doing the deed himself.

As I stated before, there is no clear protagonist. Molly waffles between inviting in and kicking out Dupree, Carl has outbursts resulting in physical pain (mostly his), Mr. Thompson is the father-in-law from hell we met in Meet the Parents, and Dupree will do anything to live off of someone else. They roar and they rampage until the end, but the concluding situation is calmed far to quickly and unrealistically, like a riot quelled in an instant. Many unnecessary jokes could have been replaced with plot development, but they still elicit some legitimate laughs, and that's why we came.

Kate Hudson is really, really cute, three hundred watt cute. But that's about all that this film has going for it. It seems to me like a lot of films I've seen, where someone comes up with a really neat premise, one that gets the green light from the studio. But then someone has to write a compelling story to go on top of the premise. And this film, like so many others, peters out at that stage. There were a few laughs, but the movie got boring pretty quick, and stayed that way. Sometimes it aimed for zany, but missed by a fairly wide margin. Unless you are a huge fan of one of the actors, you probably should pass on this one. But Kate was really cute.

This is an extremely lazy slacker comedy. Owen Wilson overdoes his 'aw shucks' charm as a good for nothing who stays on as a house guest with his reluctant best friend. There are some comic moments but the film as a whole simply doesn't work. Why would anyone put up with someone as self-centered and obnoxious as Dupree? The film doesn't even bother to try. Kate Hudson looks good but has little to do. In fact, Matt Dillon and Michael Douglas, all play second fiddle to Owen. With a weak script and few laughs, this is pretty poor stuff,only watchable if you are completely bored.

Overall 3/10

After Carl and Molly get married in Hawaii, they come back home to start their new life together. It just so happens that Carl's best man, Dupree, lost his job due to time he took off to go to the wedding, thus he finds himself with no home and no money. Carl being the best friend he is invites Dupree to stay at his house until Dupree gets his feet back on track. Things don't go according to plan as Dupree quickly becomes a burden and the stress of Carl's new job and his step-father as his boss is taking a toll on him.

Coming off his success of Wedding Crashers, Owen Wilson quickly pumps out another comedy in which he plays the same loser character with a heart of gold. Only this time he doesn't have the safety net that is Vince Vaughn to bounce off of. Thus driving You, Me, & Dupree to enter the same category of, ironically, Vaughn's other film, The Break-Up. To say this film is original is laughable; just about everything that happens has happened in other funnier comedies. It goes about the formula with a check list and doesn't really bother to add anything to the mix. The film even has the wacky, cool because he's an old school actor type character, Michael Douglas and of course the montage to show he's back on track segment with Dupree.

From directors Anthony and Joe Russo, who have had their hands in the hilariously funny television series Arrested Development, one would expect some form of hilarity to be present. This is not the case, as the film only gets some chuckles here and there, mostly from Wilson himself, in particular when he is being chased by a security guard. Even though Wilson does indeed play the same character here as he does in just about everything else, he does manage to be the best thing. I was expecting more from Dillon, with comedies such as "There's Something About Mary" and "One Night at McCool's" one would expect something more out of him, but he plays it straight here. Every now and again I would get annoyed with his character, as it seemed he had no idea what he was doing. Next to Hudson, he has the most serious role.

Speaking of Hudson, her screen time is severely lacking and what little time she does have, she does nothing with it. Hudson is adorable, but brings nothing to the film. Hudson is basically the only female in the entire film. The only other females that have any significant roles are hidden. Mandy, the woman of Dupree's affection is never shown. Even the wife of their friend, Neil, is never shown, only blurred in the background. I don't fully understand why the directors chose to do this as any significance is lost on me. Michael Douglas seems so out of place here and really sticks like a sore thumb. His lines were suppose to be comedic, but came off really flat. Douglas seemed to not get the part, he plays it seriously, but with the material it just comes off weird.

Unlike "The Break-Up" which was completely flat and horrendous, Dupree manages to get a few chuckles in here and there before it exits. Don't look for originality anywhere, because you won't find it here and the supporting cast does a horrible job at accompanying Wilson. Nothing really clicks here, it's all cramped together to see if something good came out at the end. Only one scene is really memorable at it doesn't happen until the end. Wilson can be really funny, if the supporting cast is able to keep up with him and stay on the same track, you only have to watch Wedding Crashers or The Royale Tenenbaums to notice this, with Dupree it's a sinking ship and Wilson can't seem to swim all too well.

In the Russo Brothers' disappointing You, Me and Dupree, Owen Wilson's Dupree expounds an existential philosophy of keeping one's own character, a "ness" tacked on to a first name, such as his best friend's (Matt Dillon) "Carlness." It's a good idea dramatically to remind us all of our uniqueness and the necessity to nurture and protect it from, say, marauding fathers-in-law (in this case Michael Douglas), who might want to efface our individuality as well as get us vasectomies.

Yet the philosophical theme doesn't fit this comedy as it might Chekov's. Dupree's warm-hearted house guest slacking tests the patience of Carl and new wife (Kate Hudson). I can't figure out what Carl's character is, much less know what's worth preserving. Duprees's immature, likable, sometimes witty persona is much easier to determine. Kate Hudson's Molly is even easier, however, because all she has to do is put up with the boys' adolescent behavior and show up now and then in a bikini or white panties with her yellow hair in a breeze to let us know she inherited all of her mom's (Goldie Hawn) good traits including the promise of fine comedic timing should a script offer the chance. This script offers stinky scatology and humorless masturbation instead.

Wilson is establishing himself as an accomplished light comedian with a regrettable tendency to play the same type of charming bumbler who always has a pithy remark to make himself the poetic soul of the piece. His recurring sides of wit and boyish mischief are keeping him in enough cash to keep him from his even more talented role as co-writer with director and buddy Wes Anderson. So, I ask myself, why doesn't he do only projects that suit his creative gifts—maybe because he's lost his sense of "Owenness."