Wanderlust (2012)

Let me start by stating that this is not a great movie--it is more of a fun movie. The reason it spoke to me was that we have a family friend who just this month moved to an intentional community, and he built the abode he will be dwelling in at our house. So we are thinking about that subject and how the rules might work. This is a Judd Apatow movie--so consider the source--the comedy is going to be a little bit juvenile, and a little bit off color. There is the territory we are coluntarily venturing into. Paul Rudd add Jennifer Aniston play George and Linda Gergenblatt. Shortly after plopping down cash they don't have for a Greenwich Village studio apartment, George loses his job, and they flee the city (the movie does not deal with the very real contemporary issues of how they even got financing for this apartment in the first place, nor how they walked away from it). Their plan is to have George work for his intolerably obnoxious brother in Atlanta while they get back on their feet. En route to the aforementioned brother's house, they get waylaid in Elysium, an intentional community in rural Georgia, where clothing and privacy are optional, they grow thier own food and wine, and maintaining fidelty to one person is considered very old school. After about 45 minutes with George's brother and his wife, this approach to life seems inordinantly appealing to George and Linda and they hightail it out of Atlanta and back to the commune. The movie has the occasional laugh and the very real message about what sustaining long term relationships over the rough patches requires (and a stay at a commune would not be one of the necessary ingredients). It also brings us back to what might motivate people in the 21st century to live communally--and it really doesn't appear to have changed all that much. Some people are living there for all the right reasons, but there are those who are wolves in sheep's clothing. There is no excaping that sort, even when you take your clothes off, grow your own food, and live off the grid.