Playing it smart in 'Our Idiot Brother'

Every actor wants to play the Wise Fool at least once: Think of Tom Hanks and his chocolate-box similes in "Forrest Gump," or Dustin Hoffman beating the Vegas odds in "Rain Man." Paul Rudd may not follow those actors to the Oscar podium by starring in the featherweight comedy "Our Idiot Brother," but he delivers his best and most heartfelt performance in years.

Rudd plays Ned Rochlin, a bearded, beatific stoner living in the earthier, crunchier reaches of Long Island. (Part of the movie was filmed in Glen Cove.) He's the kind of good-hearted dude who'll always share his personal pot stash, even with a uniformed police officer. That boneheaded move earns Ned a probationary period and sends him into the not-so-open arms of his sisters, three New York City slickers whose busy-busy lives are just begging to be wrecked.

These exaggerated but accurately drawn types include Natalie (Zooey Deschanel), a stand-up comic whose bisexual love life is much funnier than her club-emptying material; Liz (Emily Mortimer), a Park Slope hover-mother married to a womanizing documentarian (Steve Coogan, always welcome); and Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), a knives-out journalist pitching a big piece to Vanity Fair. The merrily self-mocking screenplay comes from Evgenia Peretz, a contributing editor to that magazine, and her husband, documentary filmmaker David Schisgall.

Director Jesse Peretz (the writer's brother) gently interweaves the barely connected stories and wisely lets his fine cast get all the glory. Some of the best performances come from bit players -- Rashida Jones as a butchy girlfriend, T.J. Miller as a henpecked hippie -- but Rudd is genuinely irresistible, hitting a career high after hit-and-miss comedies like "Role Models" and "I Love You, Man."

As Ned, a kind of Forrest Gump for the jam-band generation, he gives "Our Idiot Brother" its heart and dopey soul.

PLOT A naive hippie upends the lives of his citified sisters. RATING R (language, sexuality, crude humor)

CAST Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Elizabeth Banks

LENGTH 1:30

PLAYING AT Area theaters

BOTTOM LINE A featherweight comedy, but Rudd is irresistible in the wondrously dopey title role.

Back story: Rudd plays it all in the family

Paul Rudd found that Ned, his character in "Our Idiot Brother," was inspiring and fresh, and acknowledged that such a forthright, open soul can get into trouble in today's society.

"It's an idealistic way to live, and I think we try and strive for that kind of nonjudgmental, uncynical way of living, but the world doesn't really function like that," Rudd says. "Families don't really function like that. So it's a balancing act."

Director Jesse Peretz says Rudd's ability to play drama and comedy at the same time convinced him Rudd was the right actor to play Ned.

Rudd calls Peretz, whom he's known for more than a decade, "the most universally liked person I know."

"I feel like he feels bad giving you direction," Rudd says with a laugh. "But somehow through that, in his very cool way, he make you think as if you've come up with a new idea when he's really leading you to it. Then you love him at the end of it."

Is honesty the best policy when it comes to talking with family members? Rudd pauses and says, "It really depends on the family member and what it is you're withholding."

-- Entertainment News Wire