We’re the Millers (2013)

[7]

Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston star in this comedy about at pot dealer (Sudeikis) who hires a stripper (Aniston), a lonely teen virgin (Will Poulter) and a homeless girl (Emma Roberts) to pose as his nuclear family as he smuggles an obscene load of marijuana out of Mexico. We’re the Millers generates laughs by seeing this team of misfits hide their agenda (and their cargo) by pretending to be a loving family to the authorities and fellow travelers. And wouldn’t you know it? They might just start to feel like a real family after all.

Maybe it’s my soft spot for ‘surrogate family’ narratives, but count this among the few contemporary comedies I actually enjoyed. Even though you can see the ending a mile away, the cast make the forging of familial bonds convincing without too much eye-rolling. Credit must go to the screenwriters and director Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dodgeball) for giving these characters ample room to breathe and live in a script that never gets mired in plotting.

The film is riddled with memorable gags and comic set-pieces. Some of my favorite sequences involves Aniston hiding a large brick of weed under a blanket and pretending it’s a baby, and Poulter’s character receiving kissing lessons from his ‘mom’ and ‘sister’. Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) and Kathryn Hahn are scene stealers as a conservative couple who keep running into the Miller clan. With Ed Helms and Luis Guzman.