Long into You, Me and Dupree, there's a moment when Matt Dillon's exasperated, newly married Carl Peterson informs Owen Wilson's Dupree, a houseguest who has long overstayed his welcome, that Dupree is not as loveable as he believes himself to be.
Bingo!
It should be the film's defining moment. Unfortunately, however, this is a conclusion that anyone sitting through this listless, nearly laughless romantic comedy will have reached about an hour earlier.
Yet screenwriter Michael Le Sieur's premise is pregnant with laughter: a good friend is invited to stay in a newly married couple's living room "for a couple of weeks," until he can get back on his feet and find his compass after losing his job.
But the stay goes on and on and on and, much to the couple's distress, Dupree has the unerring knack of wreaking destruction on everything he touches.
This includes the toilet, the new sofa, the roof gutter and the couple's marriage, already on shaky ground thanks to the butt-insky maneuverings of her controlling, wealthy father, for whom Carl works.
Although the idea is potentially hilarious, Wilson's Dupree comes off as merely bad news, an annoyance that one hopes will go away.
At one point, after a particularly calamitous experience, Dupree is given his marching papers by Carl and his new wife, Molly (Kate Hudson). But in a bewildering moment of pity and forgiveness, Molly brings him back, even though that brings the promise of more disasters to come.
No matter what terrible messes he creates, Dupree cruises over them with a shrug and the look of a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He thinks he can get by on what he believes is his cuteness, but he's a clueless jerk.
Much of You, Me and Dupree exists in some fantasy world where people don't act like anyone does in real life.
Carl simmers as his overbearing boss and father-in-law (Michael Douglas as an egomaniac), a land developer, takes over and changes Carl's plans for a modest housing tract, then tries to remake Carl in his own image.
Molly begins to take a greater interest in Dupree, the man who has hung a black cloud over their house. Dupree drifts blithely through it all, blissfully unmindful of the troubles he has brewed.
The gags in Le Sieur's script are not terribly original and they're not carried out with much flair by director brothers Anthony and Joe Russo. There's more than one bathroom joke and, sad to say, the one about unfortunate odors is one of the funniest in the film.
A big chase sequence through the halls of an office building is broken up into segments, causing it to lose its momentum, and it's never as funny as the actors apparently think it is.
This is supposed to be a romantic comedy, but the main characters are a cheerfully unaware Peter Pan, a rosy Pollyana, an overbearing monster and a man wallowing in self pity. It's an attractive cast, but they've been placed in a no-win situation.
It's not long before these characters, like You, Me and Dupree itself, wear out their welcome.
mjanuson@projo.com / 401-277-7276
**
You, Me and Dupree
Starring: Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson, Matt Dillon, Michael Douglas.
Rated: PG-13, contains sexual situations, nudity, adult themes.
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