NEW YORK, Aug 5 (Reuters) - The cast of "We're the Millers" didn't exactly immerse themselves in research for their roles in the new comedy. Then again, considering the characters they played, that might have been for the best.
In the film, which opens on Wednesday, small-time pot dealer
David finds himself in hock to his supplier, and agrees to
smuggle some marijuana from Mexico to the United States to pay
off the debt.
David, played by Jason Sudeikis, pulls together a phony
family to paint a picture of innocence before suspicious border
guards. He enlists stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston), runaway
Casey (Emma Roberts) and naive teenage neighbor Kenny (Will
Poulter).
The four drive a recreational vehicle across the border and
back as a series of mishaps tests the fake family.
So, role research? Not so much.
“They had to drag me out of that strip club every night,”
Aniston deadpanned at a recent news conference.
The movie’s off-kilter look at family road trip movies isn’t
the only way “We’re the Millers” subverts convention.
With its broad take on families, what they mean and how
they’re built, “We’re the Millers” is as concerned with changing
viewers’ perspectives as with getting laughs.
“Part of what was exciting for me about the project was the
element of subversion of your standard family road trip movie or
the tropes of that,” director Rawson Marshall Thurber told
Reuters in an interview.
A game of Pictionary goes south after Kenny draws a
skateboard and David and Rose wind up making some anatomical
guesses that are not exactly family friendly.
David threatens to pull the RV over during a family fight.
The typical paternal admonishment of “I’ll turn this car around
and we’ll go straight home” becomes “No drugs for anyone” if the
bickering doesn’t stop.
And the notion of family is redefined. The characters joined
the trip for selfish reasons, Thurber noted, but they grew to
care about each other.
“That’s the whole emotional storyline that plays throughout
the film, which is, we get four people who get into this
adventure and this quest for their own reasons,” Thurber said.
Aniston portrays a stripper whose loser ex has left her in
financial straits. She agrees to play David’s wife in his
drug-smuggling scheme for cash.
Despite her sketchy background, Aniston’s character Rose is
most notable for her quick thinking, such as when she fakes a
group prayer to appease an angry flight attendant.
The movie has “nothing to do with female sexuality and
everything to do with interpersonal relationships and the bonds
of family, be they biological or volitional choices,” Thurber
said.
“What I want to do is make a movie that’s really funny,
that’s enjoyable, but also gives you just a little bit of
something to talk about on the way home.”
