Starring: Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Jack Gore, Allison Pill, Jake McDorman
Distributor: Icon Films
Runtime: 91 mins. Reviewed in Jun 2018
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‘Ideal Home’, a dramedy about a gay couple who are suddenly forced to look after a child, feels caught halfway between a soapy TV movie and a decent Netflix comedy. Its A-list stars (whom one can only assume were somehow obligated to appear in this run-of-the-mill flick) are responsible for most of its high-points, while predictable plotting, yo-yoing tones and sub-par craft deliver its lows.
Our leads are flamboyant TV cooking show host Erasmus (Steve Coogan) and his producer and partner Paul (Paul Rudd). Although they bicker on-set, they’re apparently a happy couple, sharing a sprawling Pueblo Revival-style home in Santa Fe, where they host their celebrity friends for lavish parties. During one such do, a kid claiming to be Erasmus’ grandson (Jack Gore, solid) appears at the dinner table, declaring that his single father has been imprisoned. With lack of pause that stretches credibility, Erasmus and Paul take the boy into their home and start to (at times questionably) care for him.
The screenplay, written by director Andrew Fleming, works its way through the list of predictable complications – the kid is standoffish and uses hurtful slurs when they try to get close him, his presence drives a wedge between the couple, Child Protective Services put pressure on their arrangements, their professional relationship also becomes strained, and the kid’s delinquent father re-enters the picture to retrieve his son. In these moments, the film reaches with utter conviction for unearned emotional payoffs, that only barely register thanks to the commitment of its leading men.
Coogan and Rudd, two incredibly charming and gifted comedic actors, do their best with the roles that they’re hamstrung with. Coogan, who worked with Fleming previously on the superior ‘Hamlet 2’, is given a part that strays close to stereotype, jaunty and effete. Coogan manages to make his vanity a kind of defence mechanism, keeping others at a distance to preserve oneself, which lends him an undue sympathy. Rudd is, unsurprisingly, excellent, doing the heavy emotional lifting required of his character, and doing it convincingly even when the emotions themselves don’t make total sense. His charisma as a leading man has been recognised in recent years, and it’s thanks to this that he escapes unscathed by this messy production. Though Rudd and Coogan’s chemistry isn’t quite the dynamite that may have elevated this film to passable, it’s sweet enough that you buy their gentle affection.
However, not even Coogan and Rudd can survive the wildly veering tones that threaten every scene. Erasmus rounds off a confronting speech by their ward about his mother’s death at a dinner that they’re hosting by loudly announcing that he’s cooked a pear tart for dessert. Paul explodes at Erasmus about their uneven sharing of responsibilities just moments after they swap some cutesy banter. The atmosphere of the movie is so ill-defined that it never feels real, a notion not helped by the way it breezes past what should be several roadblocks in the plot (CPS doesn’t even arrive on the scene until 10 weeks after the kid’s arrival!). The screenplay also strangely incorporates a lot of free advertising for Taco Bell, which does give you cause to wonder whether they paid for the film’s production as a feature-length ad.
Elsewhere, the craft on display is frustratingly sloppy for a theatrical release. Errors as simple as obvious continuity goofs distract in several scenes. In one moment, an outdoor conversation between Erasmus and Paul cuts between three angles, each with the characters lit is disparate ways; they’re dappled in shadows in one setup, sun kissed in the next, and lit in cool blues in the third. I’m unsure whether this reflects an inadequate budget or a lack of care on the part of the filmmakers, but the outcome is the same.
One could be forgiven for thinking that only the heft of its stars saved this movie from a direct-to-DVD fate. Given the quality of the movie in which Coogan and Rudd find themselves, one wonders whether this was a mercy at all.
Callum Ryan is an associate of the Australian Catholic Office for Film & Broadcasting.
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