Movie Review: Dinner for Schmucks

I really like Steve Carell, I just haven’t been sure why.

Since “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” his films have been decently good, but have failed to really shine. His character on “The Office” makes me cringe with his clueless and uber-awkward personality. Still, I like Carell and put him on the top of my list of Hollywood figures with whom I’d like to share a beer.

I’ve finally figured it out. Carells’ characters may be stupid, clueless, moronic, irritating, or weird. They may even be schmucks. But they are never, ever cynical. Michael, Carell’s character on The Office, works because at his core, he always believes the best of everyone around him, despite repeated and overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Andy, the 40 year old virgin, consistently rejected anything short of the love he knew must exist somewhere. Even his role as a despairing gay uncle in “Little Miss Sunshine” reveals a character who is wounded precisely because he couldn’t turn cynical and shrug off all the disappointments of life.

Call Steve Carell the anti-cynic.

Carell’s one man war against cynicism comes to a head in the wildly uneven film “Dinner for Schmucks,” opening today. Tim (Paul Rudd) is an up and coming executive at an investment firm. His beautiful and kind girlfriend, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), anticipates her art career taking off as well. The door of opportunity opens when the big boss invites Tim to join a slick, hip, cool group of top executives for dinner.

There is a catch, however. Each guest must bring a guest of his or her own, a schmuck, who will be told they’re invited because of some extraordinary talent. In reality, they are brought to be ridiculed by the oh-so-tasteful group of rich and powerful executives.

Tim, uncomfortable but ultimately accepting of this plan, meets Barry (Carell), an IRS agent who uses his spare time to make dioramas of great art using dead mice. Barry is the schmuck to end all schmucks, the Emperor of Schmuckland, and the M.V.P. of the Schmuck League.

Tim is so gonna win.

Except, of course, by winning, Tim is losing. He’s losing the part of himself he respected, not to mention the respect and love of his Julie, who sees through the whole sordid business immediately.

Unfortunately, the beauty of the hip-cynic versus doofus-idealist showdown becomes bogged down in other storylines in the film. Julie’s client, a raging, self-indulgent artist named Kieran (Jermaine Clement) eyes her as another conquest. His cynicism is no less for being hidden behind art. Tim is hunted by a seedy stalker and Barry mourns the loss of his wife to the clutches of fellow IRS agent Therman (the hilarious Zach Galifianakis).

Although the film is rated PG-13 (which, frankly, surprised me), it is not suitable for children, as much of the humor comes from seedy situations and Barry’s innocent reaction to them. He talks about sex a lot, although nothing graphic is shown. The movie is very funny at times, but other scenes fall as flat as a dead mouse squished by a car before Barry could rescue it. Some bits are just odd.

I wish the film had been more consistently funny, and better in general, because the pushback against cynicism feels fresh and timely. In a world of Jon Stewarts and Stephen Colberts, and a world in which people don’t “get” Stewart and Colbert are mocked, there is a divide between hip, mostly urban people who consider themselves sophisticated and ordinary masses of people who probably have never bothered to consider whether they’re sophisticated or not. For some, the highest goal is not to be a good person, but to be a person so “in the know” that he or she can look down their nose and snicker at the poor schmucks who don’t read the New Yorker or Slate, who believe in flag and God, and who don’t relate to cynical sniffings of film critics, other bloggers, and TV pundits. Scoffing has become part of the language of the national conversation, political and otherwise, as if branding an opponent a loser automatically negates his opinions. Where there is no respect, there can be no discourse.

Carell speaks up for the losers, the simpletons, the unsophisticated, and it’s a good move on his part. It’s so often the cynics who get to make the movies, but it’s the schmucks who buy the tickets. The overwhelming success of “The Blind Side,” a wholeheartedly uncynical film, is evidence of schmuck buying power. However, I think there’s more to it. I think Carell and others like him (Judd Apatow comes to mind) set up cynicism to knock it down, to make a case for realistic idealism, for actually caring about love and purpose and life. They argue it’s possible to be a good person and live a good life in a cynical age. If that makes us unsophisticated losers, so be it.

Like Steve Carell, I’ll side with the schmucks.

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