Wanderlust: I Believe I Can Fly

Official Site: wanderlust-movie.com
Director(s): David Wain 
Writer(s): Ken Marino, David Wain
Producer(s): Judd Apatho, Ken Marino, Paul Rudd, David Wain
Starring: Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Malin Akerman, Ken Marino, Justin Theroux


George( Rudd) and Linda (Aniston) are ambitious and determined to make it in New York, but their determination in achieving success is thwarted when George loses his job after law enforcement raided the company building and confiscated some of the assets. George is unemployed, along with his wife whose penguin documentary was rejected,  after HBO bluntly  told her it is depressing and simply not sexy " Fuck the penguins." 

Making matters worse, they recently purchased a very expensive "micro-loft", but  really it's a studio with a bed that pulls down from the wall.  Out of desperation they tried selling the the studio, I mean "micro-loft", but since the housing market truly despises appreciation, the value of the property decreased only weeks after the purchase. Having lost everything, George and  Linda reluctantly  traveled to Georgia to live with Rick, George's brother. 

On the way to Georgia,  looking for a hotel, the dead broke couple drove into a narrow somewhat muddy road surrounded by trees only to have their headlights spot  a naked thick-assed middle aged man who struck them as insane.That was George and Linda's introduction to the Elysium, a commune for hippies, the antithesis of  what they were striving to be in New York, or was it?    

Linda was hesitant in  becoming a member of the commune, but she eventually assimilated well. Feeling alive and happy, immersing herself into the zeitgeist of free love, vegetarianism, and asceticism, she discovered a passion for life that city culture was not proving. Having many passions from one year to the next was part of Linda's character, living in a commune was one of them. George, enthusiastic initially, was later angered by not having privacy. There were no doors to the bathrooms, and bedrooms. He did not like the food. Veganism was not for George. He wanted meat.


Finding a lifestyle hybrid in which there is bearable compromise between urban, and simple life, came to mind as I watched this  movie. Ascetic living offers a life not hampered by stuff, and the pressure to succeed. An urban life supported by the architecture of simplicity found in asceticism is achievable, by not living beyond one's means; a valuable lesson George and Linda learned.