Our Idiot Brother Is Likeable Enough

Our Idiot Brother is the story of a sweet-natured fool who depends on his three sisters to get his life back on track. It’s good for a smile, if not big laughs:

• In the New York Times, AO Scott calls it a “thin, unconvincing movie made likable by the charm and skill of its cast and by a script peppered with wit and insight.” The humor, however, comes from “obvious, picked-over places.”

• “The comedy isn't always as crisp as it should be,” notes Betsy Sharkey in the Los Angeles Times. But Paul Rudd “has an uncanny ability to create characters that feel completely devoid of avarice, angst, or anything unseemly.”
• It’s a film “as good-hearted as its hero,” writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. “It's refreshing, this late in the summer, to find a hot weather comedy that doesn't hate its characters.”
• Peter Travers, writing in Rolling Stone, isn’t so charmed. “Our Idiot Brother comes off as a blueprint for a smart script no one really made.”

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