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DUPREE’S COMPANY
YOU, ME AND DUPREE (PG-13) It's hard enough
for a newly married couple to find their conju
gal groove without family and friends intruding
into that single domestic space now stretched
to fit two. Carl and Molly Peterson (Matt Dillon
and Kate Hudson) learn the hard way why it's
two, not three, that become one when Carl's
best friend Dupree (Owen Wilson) moves in. As
if Dupree sleeping in
the nude and pleasur
ing himself in the living
room isn't enough for
the couple to deal with,
Carl also must contend
with the pressure of
working for Molly's father
(Michael Douglas) who
hates him and wants to
see him fail. But with a
friend like Dupree making
sure failure isn't an op
tion and another married
friend, Neil (Seth Rogen
of The 40 Year-Old Virgin,
“Freaks and Geeks" and
“Undeclared"), providing
little assistance, Carl's
choices get a lot more limited in this amusing,
ill-focused movie. You, Me and Dupree has no
clear trajectory, no arc. Should Dupree learn a
lesson in responsibility by the end credits? Will
Molly be taught to loosen up by the free spirit
who singed her living room during a buttery sex
ual encounter? (Let's hope not. Molly is the film's
saint, that one-dimensional connubial angel
Hollywood teaches our youthful males to covet.)
The answer to all of these questions is no.
Despite a late. Carl-centric Hail Mary of a plot.
Owen Wilson
Dupree is a giant, comedic character study. To
get You, Me and Dupree, you've got to get Dupree
and thereby Wilson. If you find the blond,
crooked-nosed Wilson's nearly trademarked
snidely sincere delivery of drolly Zen-like plati
tudes annoying, you might want to find another
theater. You, Me and Dupree is busting at the
seams with him. While Hudson is tremendously
cute in a film vastly
impioved upon 2004's
Raising Helen and Dillon
works hard and straight.
Dupree, executive pro
duced by Wilson, lives
and dies with its leading
man. Dupree might be
the nightmare house-
guest, but you don't
really want him to leave.
Like an ingratiating bad
penny, he keeps turn
ing up exactly when you
need an extra cent, or
someone to replace your
husband at Career Day.
They may be brothers,
but directors Anthony
and Joe Russo ("Arrested Development," Welcome
to Collinwood) are no Farrellys. Dupree never hits
home emotionally like There's Something About
Mary or even The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and it goes
sappy as The Wedding Crashers in its final act.
Still, the cameos are kept to the league minimum
(one), and its full-grown laughs are 10 times the
size of Little Man. I might not want to open my
house to him, but Dupree's good for a night out.
Drew Wheeler
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