Cedar Rapids (2011)
Directed by Miguel Arteta
Written by Phil Johnson
Starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Isiah Whitlock, Sigourney Weaver
Release Date February 11th, 2011
Published February 11th, 2011
It's “The 40 Year Old Virgin” minus the Virgin part. That's a pretty solid description of “Cedar Rapids” which stars a former Daily Show correspondent turned star of The Office, Ed Helms, and tells the story of an innocent man-child slowly drawn toward debauchery by a coterie of bad influences who happen to make great friends.
Directed by Miguel Arteta (“Chuck & Buck,” “Youth in Revolt”), “Cedar Rapids” is the story of Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) a Wisconsin insurance salesman who gets the opportunity of a lifetime after the unfortunate passing of a co-worker (a delightfully awful cameo by Reno 911's Thomas Lennon as a top salesman who dies, off-screen, from auto-erotic asphyxiation.)
Tim is headed to Cedar Rapids for an annual conference of Insurance Company salespeople where the head of the industry, midwest division, Orrin Helgeson (Kurtwood Smith) will hand out the coveted Two Diamond Award, something Tim's late co-worker had walked away with each of the past two years.
While in Cedar Rapids Tim is instructed by his boss, go to character actor Stephen Root, to stay out of trouble as Orrin is a pious man and expects the same of all Two Diamond Award winners. Unfortunately for Tim staying out of trouble will be hard while rooming with his new best friend, the ingratiating Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly) who has no designs on the Two Diamond Award, only on having a real good time.
Also caught up with Tim and Dean is convention regular Ronald Wilkes (Isiah Whitlock) and mom turned Cedar Rapids party girl Joan Ostrowski Fox (Anne Heche); each of whom will help Tim come out of his shell in ways the naive Wisconsinite could never have imagined.
Miguel Arteta has a particular talent for characters like Tim Lippe. The innocent cast into a fast paced new world has been an area of expertise for Arteta in movies like “Youth in Revolt,” where Michael Cera created a French alter-ego to deal with the quick witted girl of his dreams leading to drug trips and a crime spree as well as in “The Good Girl” where a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal experienced love for the first time with a sad housewife played by Jennifer Aniston.
Arteta brings an immigrants eye view to these characters. Born in Puerto Rico, Arteta came to the US is the 80's where he fostered his love of movies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Like Arteta at Wesleyan, his characters seem to be learning a whole new language and culture in their new environments and like Arteta they are quick on the uptake even as the experience is a mind-blowing change.
Ed Helms captures the eager to please Wisconsinite with just the right mix of man-child and upstanding citizenship. We meet Tim for the first time as he accepts a booty call from, of all people, his former grade school teacher played with voracious cougar-ness by Sigourney Weaver. Naturally, Tim thinks this relationship is going somewhere while we in the audience and the teacher quickly feel sorry for him.
Helms has the ability to earn sympathy and laughs in equal measure and it makes him an ideal innocent in the debauched, snowy airs of the big city, Cedar Rapids. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche and Isiah Whitlock make the perfect crew for Tim; Reilly the obnoxious, drunken ‘ladies man,’ Heche as the Cedar Rapids style 'femme fatale,' and Whitlock the stalwart good guy who we know has Tim's back with an assist from Omar from the HBO series 'The Wire.'
”Cedar Rapids” is a glorious satire of supposed big fish in small ponds everywhere. The overblown importance of the “Two Diamond Award,” Cedar Rapids as the Las Vegas of the Insurance sales game, and Tim's general awe at his surroundings set flame to the overstuffed egos of anyone who can't understand why the movie is so funny.
One of the major buys of the Sundance Film Festival, “Cedar Rapids” is poised to be one of the breakout comedies of 2011. Will Ed Helms become the next Steve Carell? Only the box office can decide that. For now bask in the glory of Tim Lippe and his wild weekend in “Cedar Rapids.”
