Synapse to Cintax
White Water Grafting…
PLOT Following the (auto-erotic asphyxiated) demise of the company’s star player, insurance salesman Tim Lippe (played by Helms) finds himself responsible for bringing home the prestigious “Two Diamonds Award” at an annual convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Distracted by three convention veterans, Lippe quickly finds himself embroiled by the regulation-issue insurance convention triumvirate of parties, prostitutes (well, one) and cream sherry.
Cedar Rapids pitches itself as a fish-out-of-water comedy of sorts. At the centre of the film is Tim Lippe (age = 34; alcoholic drink of choice = cream sherry) played with childlike enthusiasm and gusto by Helms. He’s an insurance salesman from a small Midwestern town and full-time naïf. When I say naïf, I’m talking about the sort of guy who receives two packets of peanuts on a plane with wide-eyed amazement and delivers the fantastic line “There’s palm trees and the whole place smells like chlorine. It’s like I’m in Barbados or somewhere” when he arrives at the non-Barbadian hotel. And, although at first glance the flick flirts with the clichéd template of man-from-small-town-goes-to-big-town-and-comes-back-a-bigger-person, it’s got charm in spades and somehow avoids the twee factor.
This is helped in no small measure by the calibre of actors and the chemistry that clearly exists between them. Helms is super-likeable (as Lippe might put it) and goofily hilarious, yes, but no less relatable. The supporting cast is incredibly strong and Reilly is as impressive as ever as actuarial party boy Dean Ziegler (whom Lippe is told by his boss to stay away from. He doesn’t). Isiah Whitlock, Jr. is an inspired spot of casting as Ronald ‘I always keeps one in the chamber’ Wilkes. His is a self-described fan of The Wire (as well as antiquing) and, as far as in-jokes go, it doesn’t get much better than his impersonations of Omar which play on Whitlock’s actual depiction of Senator Clay Davis in the aforementioned show. SHIIIIT! Heche is tons of fun as siren Joan Ostrowski-Fox, Sigourney Weaver pops up rather wonderfully as Helms’ ex-schoolteacher / part-time lover and Alia Shawkat (Maebe in Arrested Development) is a potty-mouthed local hooker who delivers one of the more surprisingly crude lines of the film.
What’s more, it’s a cracking script put together by Phil Johnston (included as it was on the 2009 Blacklist). While it may not fall into the rapid-fire / joke a minute category (previous projects like The Good Girl and Youth in Revolt probably give an idea of what to expect), it doesn’t aim to either. Indeed, its avoidance in doing so draws it away from broader, say Apatow, comedic-fare and more towards something akin to Little Miss Sunshine or Cyrus at a push; an indie comedy that doesn’t bludgeon the audience with a sequence of by numbers jokes and is funny without having to try too hard. For me, it’s a great example of a film that’s simply able to put a smile on your face. And for a comedy, what further praise could you wish for?
