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Ed Helms and company give heartland-comedy refreshing new life with the recent Sundance darling, Cedar Rapids. Helms, the executive producer of the film as well as its main character, is slowly inching his sweet little naïve self into the forefront as the honorary ambassador of raunch-com, a title not so long ago held by such luminaries as Judd Apatow, Evan Goldberg, and Seth Rogen.
But raunch-comedy isn’t really the right description for this film. Though a cousin to 2009’s lewd-fest The Hangover, in which Helms also starred, Cedar Rapids relies less on crude jokes and vulgar sight gags (though it undoubtedly has its fair share of those). It instead goes to America’s conservative heartland to pull much of its appeal from bumpkin-in-the-big-city embarrassment and lewd–plus-sweetness humor. Let’s call it a Midwestern.
Helms is Tim Lippe, a sheltered thirty-something insurance agent who has never left his small Wisconsin home town, has never stayed at a hotel, and has never experienced anything as exciting as Cedar Rapids, Iowa. When sent to represent his company at the annual insurance convention, Tim is quickly distracted by three convention veterans (Anne Heche, John C. Reilly, and Isiah Whilock, Jr.) who will not only show him the ropes of the big city, but ultimately turn it into the journey of a man finding the confidence to be who he really is.
Upon his arrival in Cedar Rapids, his friend, Dean Zieglar (John C. Reilly) gives the wide-eyed Tim a stern warning that would be helpful to anyone on his first visit to the big city, “Welcome to the jungle, Timbo.” Of course, the warning is lost on Tim as he thinks the girl bumming a smoke in front of the hotel every day is just looking to be his friend. And imagine his shock when Tim discovers that his roommate is a large man in the form of Isiah Whitlock, Jr. (The Wire), likely the first black man he’s ever seen. Whitlock, as Ron “the Ronimal,” is also in on the joke as he gives a clever little send up to his Wire character, State Senator Clay Davis. Ron is a good guy, a little bit nerdy, quite conservative in his demeanor and the way he carries himself, but ironically, his meeting with Tim leads to a bit of a coming out for himself as well.
Dean Zieglar becomes the third roommate as the infamously foul-mouthed insurance agent Tim was warned to avoid, but ultimately befriends. When the trio pays a visit to the hotel bar, they’re joined by the red-haired siren of the insurance business, Joan Ostrowski-Fox who sees the annual convention as an opportunity to sow some wild oats. When a brief sexual interlude with Tim leads to a case of the next-morning-regrets, Joan pulls him to the side and reminds him of their vow of silence, “remember what I told you, whatever happens in Cedar Rapids, stays in Cedar Rapids.”
As the weekend wears on, the story takes a much darker turn down the avenue of Superbad or The Hangover, with drunken swimming pool seductions, drug-fueled house parties, speedy car getaways, and next morning reconstructions. But the film’s new dark tone is skillfully tempered by the way writer Phil Johnston has constructed Helms’ character. Tim is initially an enchantingly guileless innocent faced with a world of unfamiliar vices, but as the debauchery ramps up, he remains a noble character who still manages to hold on to his sweet, funny, optimistic ways of looking at things. In other words, he doesn’t take the classic tailspin into an enraged fit or reckless downward spiral. He remains lovable.
As strong and instrumental to the success of the film as is Helms, director Miguel Arteta is doubly so. He knows that characters in painful situations will translate to “funny” for an audience only as long as the comedy isn’t based on shop-worn jokes and over-the-top obnoxiousness. There’s a fine line between broad humor and clever smarts – Arteta walks it like a Wallenda. As a result, Cedar Rapids is a delightfully goofy little comedy likely to vault everyone involved into a role of emissaries of this “new” brand of self-deprecating humor with America's heartland at the end of its poking stick… let’s call it Midwestern Comedy.
MPAA Rating: R for crude and sexual content, language and drug use.
