Bad case of ‘Wanderlust’

February 25, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

By Rafer Guzman

Newsday

Two high-pressure Manhattanites chuck it all for a care-free rural commune in “Wanderlust,” a comedy that aims for hip irreverence but ends up firmly in Squaresville. Filled with ossified stereotypes and a hopelessly traditional outlook, “Wanderlust” feels about as edgy as an early Johnny Carson monologue and slightly less clever than a “Visualize Whirled Peas” bumper sticker.

Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston play our latte-sipping heroes, George and Linda, a married couple cramming into a West Village “micro-loft” while his finance-industry salary subsidizes her indie filmmaking ambitions. But when George’s firm is shuttered by the Feds (a brief nod to topicality), he and Linda relocate to Atlanta as guests of two other caricatures: George’s wealthy, racist brother, Rick (co-writer Ken Marino, saving himself a few good lines), and his margarita-swilling wife, Marisa (Michaela Watkins).

It’s all too “Revolutionary Road” for George and Linda, but they’re somehow charmed by Elysium, a nearby “intentional community” full of summer-stock hippie-dippies such as the pregnant earth mother (Lauren Ambrose), the paunchy nudist (Joe Lo Truglio) and a soulful-eyed alpha male named Seth (Justin Theroux, a cut above the rest) who begins rubbing his musk on Linda. The only cartoon groovers missing are the long-haired Muppets Floyd and Janice. Alan Alda’s small role as Carvin, the commune’s now-senile founder, feels less like an affectionate spoof of his liberal generation and more like a casual betrayal.

Rudd and Aniston, who sparkled in 1998’s “The Object of My Affection,” are drowned in cow-poop and hallucinogenic herbs, though Rudd’s improv skills get a memorably weird workout when George attempts to bed Eva (Malin Akerman), a braless free-love fantasy. Ultimately, director and co-writer David Wain (“Role Models”) treats alternative living as the dumbest joke of all, suitable only for morons and self-deluders. Even Carvin admits his decades in Elysium have robbed him of something “more real.”