IDEAL HOME

Stars: Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Jack Gore, Alison Pill, Kate Walsh and Jake McDorman.
Writer/director: Andrew Fleming.

Rating: 4/5

Sweet, smart and sassy in equal measure, Andrew Fleming’s Ideal Home catches the writer/director in full command of what he does best – spinning genuine humour and strong characters out of a bouyant film reality. As the ageing self-consumed gay partners forced into adulthood by the sudden arrival of an emotionally challenging pre-teen grandson, Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd are brash, funny and honest, traits that sum up the best moments from the 52 year-old director’s handful of films.

Citing his directorial debut, the 1988 cult horror pic Bad Dreams, as the exception that proves the rule, Fleming’s scripts mostly embrace complex character dynamics in a manner both insightful and engaging. Threesome (1994) outsmarted the Columbia Tri-Star brass, who backed but bailed on selling the hetero/homo college dorm love triangle; that year, Gen-X audiences preferred the cool, straight vanilla cast chemistry of Reality Bites.

The openly gay auteur found his truest voice (and biggest hit) with The Craft (1996), the high-school witchcraft horror-fantasy that quickly became the coming-out allegory for closeted ‘90s teens. A string of comedies followed, all of which combine vividly etched lead characters in expertly-paced dilemmas – Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dunst in the Watergate-set comedy, Dick (1999); Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks in the under-valued The In-Laws (2003); the slumber-party favourite, Nancy Drew (2007); and, the quirky, if little-seen romantic drama, Barefoot, with Evan Rachel Wood (2014; from Stephen Zotnowski’s script).

In Ideal Home, Fleming provides himself with two leads that give full voice to his fluid, florid dialogue and nuanced characters. Reteaming with the director after their 2008 comedy Hamlet 2, Coogan is Brit expat Erasmus Brumble, the host/star of the basic cable lifestyle show ‘Ideal Home’; Rudd is his showrunner and longtime partner Paul, loving yet growing increasingly tiresome of both the dead-end nature of his work and the less lovable aspects of Erasmus’ personality.

Their life as Santa Fe’s adorable bon vivants is rattled when Erasmus’ grandson, Angel (Jack Gore, mature beyond his years) lands at their home, apparently the last resort for Erasmus’ estranged ne’er-do-well son, Beau (Jake McDorman) . The gay partners are forced to reconcile their hedonistic, self-centred, responsibility-free existence with life recasting them as caretakers and role models. Both actors are terrific, delivering comedic and dramatic beats with aplomb. Their on-screen pairing is a perfectly natural fit; Coggan gets some capital-L laughs, especially in those moments that reveal his shallow egotism, while Rudd’s razor-sharp takedowns define the understated intellect at work in Fleming’s script.

Ideal Home represents the kind of quick-witted, meaningful writing that was once sought after by the big studios. Andrew Fleming’s dialogue crackles and zings in the mouths of an appreciative cast, his scene structure and pacing skilful and refined. Thirty years ago, James L Brooks, hot off Broadcast News, might have made this movie; fifteen years back, Cameron Crowe. The dramedy plays a little broader (even at his peak, Crowe would not have carried off the bawdy, brilliant Kevin Costner/Dances with Wolves gag with such sublime timing), but Andrew Fleming is certainly of that class.