Are You Here (2013)
5/10
surprisingly unfunny
29 December 2014
Steve Dallas (Owen Wilson) is a local TV weather reporter. He smokes weed with his slacker friend Ben Baker (Zach Galifianakis) who lives in a rundown trailer and has a philosophy of balance with nature. Ben's dad dies and Steve drives him home. Terri Coulter (Amy Poehler) is Ben's bossy sister. Angela (Laura Ramsey) is their hippie stepmother. Terri is given $350k and the rest of the property totaling some $2.5 million to Ben. It puts Ben into a tailspin until he comes up with an idea. Then Terri challenges the Will.

The material keeps trying and certainly Zach gives it his all. This is simply not funny. Writer/director Matthew Weiner is famous for some terrific TV work. Most of this falls flat. It's hard to put a finger on a single cause of this. The jokes are not sharp enough. The directions aren't there. There is something off about the chemistry between Owen, Zach and Angela. Owen is playing a ladies man but the movie starts with him being a horrible date. These weed smoking characters are not nearly funny enough. The four main characters just make me scratch my head. Amy Poehler is almost funny a couple of time. Laura Ramsey struggles to stay in the picture with her costars. Owen has a great moment about his friendship and then the movie turns it on his head. Just when this movie seems to climb out of a hole, it digs an even deeper one. With the talents in the picture, this should be so much funnier.
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