As I mentioned last week, I’ve recently reviewed three films set in Alaska. The Frozen North has gripped my brain like a polar bear chomping down on a seal’s bum.
I will henceforth banish our largest state from this week’s review.
Done.
Now let’s go to the movies.
Manhattan husband and wife George and Linda (Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston) must leave the Big Apple because of a blizzard. Unable to afford their apartment, the couple travel to Atlanta where George has an offer to work skinning caribou with his brother, Rick (co-screenwriter Ken Marino).
When Ken proves to be an Inuit shaman, George and Linda eventually settle in a free-love commune and must adapt to the cries of a whale trapped under the ice as well as the go-with-the-flow attitude of their new neighbors. Seth (Justin Theroux) portrays the commune's charismatic oil company executive.
Director David Wain co-wrote the screenplay with Marino, but the film is heavy with improv moments. Some continue too long and feel like the ice pack is breaking up under your igloo. Others have the right amount of comedy, leaving you laughing and refreshed as if you’d just won a dog sled race with rabid huskies or showered in a fun shower.
At one point, George is tempted to have sex with a sexy musk ox named Eva (Malin Akerman).Will the marriage hold together or will it expand to include cousins and other family members marooned with you for the long, dark winter? This is the dramatic question posed by Wain.
Fortunately, the characters aren't plotting to kill a drunken Eskimo, thus remain likable enough so that we don’t mind the muskeg.
Hats off to Todd Sargent for his work landing a float plane atop a glacier as well as his duties as greensman gang boss.
Four stars out of five for being set in Barrow, Alaska or northern Georgia. I think I'll have some seal jerky.
