Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
STEP BROTHERS is the work of diseased minds.
Really. Dale and Brennan are sociopaths. They are as shit-your-pants crazy as Heath Ledger’s The Joker. And STEP BROTHERS seems to be celebrating this particular brand of manchild retardation as not only a good thing, but a birthright. It is all about the triumph of the bizarre over the mundane.
And, like TALLADEGA NIGHTS and ANCHORMAN, the previous McKay/Ferrell films, it is very, very, very, very funny.
What’s strange is that I think this film has some very subversive and canny things to say about modern parenting, but using the most extreme comic exaggeration so that most critics who write the movie off will do so on a surface level only. At this point, you probably have some idea if you’re onboard with the particular chemistry between McKay and Ferrell. ANCHORMAN is seemingly very well-liked, oft-quoted, and admired for just how crazy it is. TALLADEGA NIGHTS was, I thought, even better, a lacerating American self-portrait. STEP BROTHERS is about the fine line between indulging our kids and supporting them. We live in a culture of entitlement that is pervasive. If you indulge your kid and give in to every little marketing beck and call that they whine about, are you going to end up with one of these 20 or 25 or 30 year old sponges unable to carve out a life for themselves? At what point do you push the baby bird out of the nest? I haven’t had to face this obviously, but every parent does at some point. There are questions I ask myself all the time: Am I a good parent? Am I going to prepare my sons for the world? Can I teach them to lead a life of worth?
Or am I going to end up with a sociopathic 6’4” raging manbaby throwing me down the stairs while he’s sleepwalking? I certainly hope not. Richard Jenkins, as Dr. Doback, certainly has the best of intentions when he hooks up with Nancy Huff, played by Mary Steenburgen. It’s an instant attraction, and when they realize they share more than a passing professional interest in common, the attraction becomes something more. Quickly.
In fact, the opening titles of this film communicate more story and in a more succinct and entertaining way that most films manage in a first act. By the time the main title STEP BROTHERS comes up, with Will and John C. Reilly framing the words, you’ve pretty much got all the set-up you need for the whole film. It’s not a story-driven movie at all... it’s character. It’s just the dynamics of this new family. And although Ferrell and Reilly play the leads, both Jenkins and Steenburgen were written unusually active and meaty supporting roles. Adam Scott gets one of his biggest roles in anything so far, and he makes a strong impression as Derek, Ferrell’s younger brother. He plays it like Tom Cruise with the crazy turned up even louder. There’s an early scene with him singing in the car with his family that is just as freaky as the dinner table scene in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. His wife Alice, played with a go-for-broke abandon, gets weirder and weirder as the film goes on. It’s not just Ferrell and Reilly that get to go for it, and that’s one of the things I like about the script.
It doesn’t all work. There’s a subplot with a blind neighbor that they continually try to make vague callbacks to, and it never works. Not once. And the Andrea Savage therapist character never quite gels, either. But for the most part, I laughed in every scene. If you, like me, thought the dinner table scene in TALLADEGA NIGHTS was one of the film’s highlights, then I have a feeling you’ll dig 99% of STEP BROTHERS. That conversation was the purest, strangest, funniest thing in that film, so real and yet completely and absolutely insane. I love the way Dale and Brennan keep switching from enemy to friend and back over the course of the film. I love the fact that the movie got an R for “crude and sexual content and pervasive language,” which is a very formal way of saying “this movie is dirty as fuck.” It’s blisteringly dirty. I won’t ruin jokes or tell you about the drum set or try to remember exactly how many uses of “cock” there are in the movie. I’ll simply say it’s almost unrelenting in its gleeful filth, and I appreciated that. It didn’t have to be that dirty, obviously. You could do the PG version of this movie and it would probably make more money. But the hard, hard, hard R rated version of it? Preposterously funny. So that’s fine by me. I think McKay’s got a really clean and sharp visual style as a comic director that reminds me of Blake Edwards. Something about the way his timing works. And that’s a compliment, as far as I’m concerned.
You absolutely have to stay through at least the first half of the credits, because if you leave, you will have thrown away your ticket money. You will have missed the big event. Trust me on this... stay. It’s so worth it.
Now that they’ve pushed each other this far with this kind of material, I’d like to see someone hire both Reilly and Ferrell and put them in something very real, very honest, very grounded and serious, because I think what’s great about watching them together right now isn’t just the comedy... it’s the connection. They are totally in tune with each other, and that’s what makes the scenes so exciting. That sense that they’re almost daring each other to keep up. McKay was smart to put these guys together again after TALLADEGA. He saw what happened between them on set, and he took a chance on it happening again. He was right, because ultimately, STEP BROTHERS only works if you buy what happens between Reilly and Ferrell. I did. I think they snap into a shared tone that they manage to ride through the movie. It’s an abrasive film at times. It’s coarse. The “heartwarming” ending of the film is more freakshow than tearjerker, which I’m sure is intentional. These are things I like about the movie, but they’re also things that might well keep some people from giving themselves over to it.
No matter. As far as I’m concerned, McKay and Ferrell are three for three, and I’m ready for whatever they’re going to do next.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
