Wanderlust Is the Best Comedy About the American Work Ethic
After I saw Wanderlust in theaters in 2012, I was furious. My partner and I saw it on a whim, having hours to kill and finding ourselves near a theater with a showing that lined up perfectly with our other plans. I walked out of the showing thinking back to all of the trailers I'd seen advertising the movie: How could they have led me astray? Why didn’t they prepare me? Why wasn’t everyone else talking about how fucking funny this movie was?
I should not have been surprised about how funny Wanderlust, which is currently streaming on Hulu and Amazon Prime, is. It’s directed by David Wain, the creator of Wet Hot American Summer and Stella. If you’re a fan of either of those, you'll recognize familiar faces like Paul Rudd, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, and Kathryn Hahn. It also stars bigger names like Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux (RIP their marriage), and Alan Alda. And through a story about a doomed hippie commune in the middle of nowhere, it manages to skewer just about every stereotype of how Americans go about trying to find fulfillment in their lives, whether by amassing possessions or throwing them all away.
The movie starts out with George (Rudd) and Linda (Aniston) in their cramped New York apartment, socializing and being cool while finding no joy or success in their respective careers. When George’s company folds, they decide to move in with his brother Rick in Atlanta; he's the kind of pompous asshole who wears a beeper clip on his khaki shorts and flaunts his success by giving you a house tour of his huge, utterly unremarkable McMansion. Rick offers George a job at his Port-a-Potty company, but George can’t take living the way Rick does, so he and Linda drive off in search of something else. That night, they find Elysium.
For a night, the commune seems like an eclectic but enticing paradise. George and Linda smoke pot, dance, flirt, relax, and realize that maybe American society got it all wrong. Has our daily grind ever actually made someone happy? Not really! Living on a commune that encourages free love, intentional living, meditation and complete freedom of expression seems like a better deal.
As with any Wain joint, the film is full of bizarre, non sequitur jokes. The phrase “He’s a creature of the Beltway!” becomes a punchline. There’s an extended scene of Paul Rudd trying to say sexy things to himself in a mirror, which goes about as well as you can expect. Every single thing Justin Theroux does as Seth, the leader of Elysium, is a pitch-perfect takedown of that guy on your college campus who thought having a bed was for sellouts but who also had a trust fund.
Since the film was made in 2012, the 2008 economic crash was still fresh in our memories, and many people found themselves in a position similar to George and Linda—keep on grinding, or say fuck it and try something else? It’s 2018 now, and I’m going to go ahead and assume that running off to a commune to be a nudist vintner sounds really nice right now, right? Just me? Even if that’s not your particular flavor of a bridge-burning fantasy, you probably have one.
But the best thing the film does is show that it doesn’t matter where you’re living or what you’re doing if your motives are hollow. With the midterm elections coming up, and things [gestures broadly] as they are, phrases like “intentional living” have been popping up a lot more. What would it look like if we built solidarity among workers and took collective action against exploiters? What if we all ate beans instead of beef? What kind of change could we bring about if we committed to being compassionate? I don’t think the movie really seeks to answer these questions. Wain probably wanted to make fun of hippies, not discuss the struggle to find meaning in a capitalist society. But Wanderlust subtly points out that intentional living means nothing without the actual, organized intent behind it. Without that, it’s just... extended camping.
Americans have a tendency to center our philosophies about what will make us happy around stuff. On one hand, we believe that we should have more of it, that having it is proof of our success, or even of god’s love (which, I’m not Christian, but wasn’t there that whole camel needle thing?). On the other, we know we should never admit that, and there are entire industries and philosophies dedicated to reminding us that we will only be happy if we give away all our stuff. I’m not sure what the answer is. I think it probably looks closer to Elysium than it does to The Mansion That Port-a-Potties Built. But more than anything I think our relationship to our stuff has to fundamentally change. Have it or don’t have it, but much misery comes from that being the central relationship of our lives.
I don’t know if any of the characters wind up having epiphanies about living in a society that values growth over sustainability, and the types of backlashes that inspires, and what a sustainable, reasonable alternative looks like. But watching it now, George and Linda's struggles still feel real. We're all one layoff away from disaster. We're all just barely staying afloat. What if we didn't have to run away to a commune to find peace? What if that's what we built everywhere?
