ideal home movie review

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The makers of the well-meaning queer-themed dramatic-comedy "Ideal Home" are smart enough to treat their middle-aged gay characters—desperate-to-please celebrity chef Erasmus ( Steve Coogan ) and his crabby producer/partner Paul ( Paul Rudd )—with enough sensitivity to make you want to root for them. Unfortunately, it's hard not to be disappointed by writer/director Andrew Fleming's tepid jokes about Erasmus and Paul's clueless attempts at maintaining their by-now strained relationship, and also adopting Erasmus's estranged grand-son Bill ( Jack Gore ), who was abandoned by his biological father/Erasmus's son. 

Coogan and Rudd's generally charming performances both give weight to their otherwise wisp-thin characters, but their swishy mannerisms also speak to the superficial nature of Fleming's presentation of Erasmus and Paul. All we know about these guys is that they drink, bicker, and are sad about how out of touch they feel. Also, they’re seriously loaded, which presumably explains how clueless they are. In that sense, the most radical and ostensibly funny thing about Erasmus and Paul is that they get to be openly gay and  cartoonishly out-of-touch. That’s not necessarily a good look, but some may consequently find the protagonists of “Ideal Home” to be adequate in an overly precious "Will & Grace" meets " Mrs. Doubtfire " kind of way.

Others may be disappointed that “Ideal Home” is not more like " The Birdcage " or any of Blake Edwards's more inclusive comedies, particularly " Victor/Victoria ." "Ideal Home" lacks those earlier comedies' fearless willingness to undercut gay stereotypes with sight gags, pithy one-liners, and dramatic asides that reveal how hard it is to be proud when society’s normalizing standard-bearers don’t see yourself like you do. "Ideal Home" is, in that sense, held back by writer/director Andrew Fleming's seeming lack of imaginative empathy. He doesn't get far enough into his characters heads to consider the underlying social pressures that motivate Erasmus and Paul's rocky relationship, and therefore never delivers any meaningfully funny jokes about what it’s like to be a pair of highly visible outsiders. 

Instead, Fleming focuses on how rich and clueless Erasmus is, and how frustrated and tired that makes Paul. Erasmus swans around his palatial ranch while filming a program about in-authentic Mexican and Indian food, including kitschy-sounding fusion platters like "Tandoori lobster." Erasmus also drinks too much, and makes big displays of emotion that are—as Paul correctly intuits—essentially insincere. This leaves Paul to do most of the day-to-day work of caring for Bill, a withdrawn kid who grew up in cheap motels and impersonal fast food restaurants thanks to his deadbeat dad. Bill—born "Angel," though he hates that name—starts off by sneering at Paul and Erasmus for being gay. He then makes Erasmus and Paul’s lives difficult by refusing to tell them his real name (thereby preventing them from enrolling him in school). Also, he won't eat anything but Taco Bell. He is poor, sad, and angry, which is apparently amusing?

Anyway, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this all sounds less like an underwhelming range of mountain-shaped mole hills. Erasmus wears a raccoon fur coat and demands the wine list and a better table when he visits Taco Bell. Then Paul tries to bribe Bill into eating Lunchables or Sour Patch Kids, just so Paul doesn't have to be seen going to Taco Bell. There’s also a couple of uncomfortable, but never really embarassing encounters with concerned social worker Melissa ( Alison Pill ). So what? What do these mild conflicts say about Erasmus and Paul other than "Our creators don't really understand us beyond a point?"

"Ideal Home" may not be a total dud, but it is a huge waste of both Rudd and Coogan's talent. Most of the film’s jokes are so shameless and uninspired that even the hackiest improv troupes would be ashamed of them, like when Paul and Erasmus take Bill to the "Dootsh-Baag Art Gallery,” or when Melissa discovers their gay porn stash, featuring titles like "Butt Pluggerz" and "Brokeback Mountin." The only thing that’s notably funny about these bland routines are the appropriately embarrassed looks on Coogan and Rudd’s faces. Fleming's jokes are rarely as funny as Coogan and Rudd are, though the bit where Erasmus and Paul have sex on a bear skin rug has an exceptionally hilarious climax.

Simon Abrams

Simon Abrams is a native New Yorker and freelance film critic whose work has been featured in  The New York Times ,  Vanity Fair ,  The Village Voice,  and elsewhere.

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Film credits.

Ideal Home (2018)

Paul Rudd as Paul

Steve Coogan as Erasmus

Jack Gore as Bill

Alison Pill as Melissa

Jake McDorman as Beau

• Andrew Fleming

Cinematographer

• Alexander Gruszynski
• Jeffrey M. Werner
• John Swihart

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Review: A Child Adds a Layer to Gay Couple’s ‘Ideal Home’

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By Teo Bugbee

• June 28, 2018

As two well-heeled aesthetes living in a version of gay paradise, where one partner hosts a cooking show that the other produces, Erasmus ( Steve Coogan ) and Paul ( Paul Rudd ) are ambivalent about the prospect of parenthood.

But when Erasmus’s estranged son is sent to prison, leaving Erasmus’s troubled young grandson Bill in his and Paul’s care, the couple adapt to the child’s needs. For better and for worse, their parenting style matches their prickly relationship. Flighty Erasmus plans parties to help Bill make friends, while duty-bound Paul takes over mundane tasks like packing lunches and driving the boy to his Santa Fe elementary school.

The director of “Ideal Home,” Andrew Fleming, based the movie on his own experience as the second parent to his partner’s child, and the movie thrives by depicting the idiosyncratic textures of gay relationships. “Ideal Home” is genuinely funny, and the poignant and pithy script is aided by the chemistry between its stars, who are equally adept with comedic punch lines as they are with dramatic gut punches. Refreshingly, the film’s tone seems pitched more to gay audiences than straight ones. Erasmus and Paul would prefer white wine over beer, thank you, and there is a pleasing and rare lack of self-consciousness about the way the characters engage with their identities.

“Ideal Home” avoids explicitly addressing its politics until the credits, which play over a photo montage of real gay families. Mr. Fleming’s gesture is clearly heartfelt, but in a film that avoids the sappiness so frequently reserved for gay domesticity in popular entertainment, it is the one sentimental sleight of hand that gives the game away.

Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes.

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Film Review: ‘Ideal Home’

As a gay couple who wind up as parental caretakers, Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd try to enliven a liberal but retrograde big-screen bitchcom.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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“ Ideal Home ,” a featherweight big-screen sitcom in which Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd play testy romantic partners who wind up as parental caretakers of a 10-year-old boy, is the perfect example of how a movie can be progressive and retrograde at the same time. It’s supposed to feel cutting edge that Coogan and Rudd, who are both terrific actors, adopt a no-big-deal posture toward portraying a gay couple. If only the movie itself were as nonchalant about it! Written and directed by Andrew Fleming, who has had a fluky, hit-or-miss career (“Threesome,” “The Craft”) but built a good comic pedestal for Coogan a decade ago with the dementedly funny “Hamlet 2,” “Ideal Home” is never not painfully aware that its two main characters are gay. It’s a cozy duet of tit-for-tat bitchery that, at times, carries the nagging whisper of a liberal minstrel show.

Instead of treating Erasmus (Coogan), a grandiose monomaniac of a celebrity chef who has his own TV series, and Paul (Rudd), a director of celebrity-chef TV, as characters who happen to be gay, the film puts their sexual identity so front and center, creating such a cliché pile of domestic shade-throwing, that it’s just about the only identity they have.

That’s especially true in the case of Erasmus, who Coogan plays as a camp diva, a louche darling, a (might as well just say it) raging old queen. Coogan long ago cornered the market on characters who are toxically self-absorbed blithe spirits. He’s a middle-aged peacock of acid-witted narcissism, never more so than when he’s doing a literal gloss on himself — in the “Trip” films (those delectable culinary road movies) or his classic segment of Jim Jarmusch’s “Coffee and Cigarettes.” Here’s the problem, though: In “Ideal Home,” Coogan, swanning about in lip rouge and neck kerchiefs, tries to do a gay variation on the same character, but instead of transforming him into a charismatic foil, Coogan’s flouncy sarcastic masochism just makes it seem like he’s starring in a road-company production of “The Boys in the Band.”

“Back in the ’80s, when I was experimenting,” he tells Paul, “I had a liaison with a woman, which resulted in a baby — yuck! [eyeroll] — which she wanted to keep.” That “yuck!” is a little…yuck, so dated and unnecessary. Erasmus is informing Paul how he wound up with an adult son, which is necessary to explain how Erasmus’s 10-year-old grandson, the freckled, floppy-haired Angel (Jack Gore), has now shown up at the pair’s sprawlingly tasteful Southwestern ranch in the desert outside Sante Fe. Angel’s dad, Beau (Jake McDorman), is a widowed troublemaker who’s been tossed in jail, which means that he can either hand Angel over to Child Protective Services or foist him off on the kid’s grandfather.

Without putting too fine a point on it, the concept, in its Velveeta way, is just musty enough to be faintly, if innocuously, homophobic. As comedy, “Ideal Home” is built around the notion of “Two neurotic gay men as parental figures? What could be more hilariously incongruous? ” Not that it’s father/son love at first sight. “Get away from me, you fag!” yells Angel as Paul tries to comfort him. But that all quickly melts away. It’s Paul who steps up to look after Angel like an actual devoted parent, and after taking him on one too many trips to Taco Bell, they forge a bond.

“Ideal Home” features one vintage Steve Coogan moment. Paul says to Erasmus, with prickly incredulity, “You’ve got a grandson?” And instead of trying to explain this startling fact, Erasmus points up to his own face and says, “It’s unbelievable, isn’t it? I mean, look, I’ve had no work done.” Is there another actor who pushes vanity into borderline insanity the way Steve Coogan does? Yet in “Ideal Home,” there’s too much old-fashioned inanity. It’s Rudd who has the “straight” role here — with a chic side-shaved haircut and bushy beard, he grounds the film, giving Paul a snappish gravity and charm that helps balance out Coogan’s lip-pursing hysteria.

The movie is about how these two, stuck in a rut after 10 years together, come to have a new appreciation for their partnership, thanks to the nurturing spirit brought on by Angel. But not before they spend a few scenes screaming at each other, and Paul storms off in a huff to go work for Rachael Ray. “Ideal Home” is a trifle, but more than that it’s caught between eras, poised between wanting to crack you up at what cranky prima donnas its characters are and to make you tear up at the revelation of their normal hearts. The result? A comedy of flamboyant banality.

Reviewed on-line, June 20, 2018. MPAA Rating: Not rated. Running time: 94 MIN.

• Production: A Brainstorm Media release of a Remstar Studios, Raygun/Baby Cow Films production. Producers: Arida Aquilana, Lucia Seabra, Aaron Ryder, Gaby Tana, Maria Teresa, Clark Peterson, Maxime Remillard. Executive producer: Lisa Wolofsky.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Andrew Fleming. Camera (color, widescreen): Alexander Gruszyski. Editor: Jeffrey M. Werner. Music: John Swihart.
• With: Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Jack Gore, Alison Pill, Jake McDorman, Jesse Luke, Eric Womack, Jenny Gabrielle, Lora Martinez-Cunningham.

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Ideal Home Reviews

Several lines and moments remain memorable and laugh-out-loud funny, regardless of its transparent ambitions as a socially progressive comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Mar 11, 2022

At times some of the gags can be a little obvious, but on the whole this has a tight comedic script that plays on both character and situation for plenty of laughs.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2021

Poignant and very funny.

Full Review | May 22, 2021

The film looks and sounds great but what really pulls the viewer in are the humor and the performances. Paul Rudd particularly shines by being his usual self but with something more to it than his usual mildly goofy, sometimes aloof performances.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 12, 2020

This is a slight film, but it is a low-key delight.

Full Review | Dec 14, 2019

I enjoyed this far more than I thought I would. Very funny and equally frustrating, mostly because of Coogan's character.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 2, 2019

Families come in an endless assortment. But it's a safe bet that few of them are as ill-assorted at first as flamboyant TV chef Erasmus, his panic attack-prone partner, Paul, and the pugnacious 10-year-old grandson Erasmus didn't know he had.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 7, 2019

Coogan and Rudd get a surprise visitor in Andrew Fleming's gay rom-com, with lightweight results.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 4, 2019

May not be groundbreaking queer cinema but it's a meaningful and genuinely hilarious movie-going experience that caters to a wide audience despite its colourful mentality.

Full Review | May 4, 2019

Like eating an old piece of candy. It tastes sweet but sometimes you can't help feeling its outdatedness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 12, 2019

Ideal Home is a pretty average comedy with some laughs thanks to the lead performances, but its messy script, Fleming's self-conscious direction and predictable storytelling bring it down a notch.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Jan 18, 2019

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd star in Ideal Home, a comedy about an upper middle-class couple that feels out of touch, and severely outdated.

Full Review | Nov 1, 2018

Ideal Home is a charming warm-hearted comedy which is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face.

Full Review | Oct 31, 2018

Significantly more earnest and sentimental than one might expect.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 27, 2018

Ideal Home is ultimately a kind of boring and really on the nose movie.

Full Review | Aug 27, 2018

Ideal Home offers a twist on the traditional family dramedy that leans slightly more towards the comedy side of things. It's ideal viewing if you're after a breezy, entertaining watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 16, 2018

The breezy romcom approach allows Fleming to touch on several big topics in ways that are never preachy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 9, 2018

It's badly out of kilter with the plot of Andrew Fleming's comedy, a low-key piece that could have been played more realistically.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 9, 2018

It's well acted and laugh-out-loud funny at times but has its longueurs too.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 9, 2018

Every joke's punchline is that these characters are gay, making it difficult to understand who exactly, in 2018, the film hopes to make laugh.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 8, 2018

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‘ideal home’: film review.

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd play a gay couple who suddenly find themselves caring for a 10-year-old boy in Andrew Fleming's comedy 'Ideal Home.'

By Frank Scheck

Frank Scheck

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There may be no more adorable onscreen duo today than Erasmus and Paul, the perpetually bickering gay couple around whom the new comedy by Andrew Fleming ( The Craft , Dick ) revolves. Played to hilarious effect by Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd, these wildly entertaining characters bring Ideal Home to vibrant life despite the film’s familiar plot aspects.

Coogan, who previously worked with the writer/director on the terrific Hamlet 2 , plays the deliciously named Erasmus Brumble, the pompous star of a Santa Fe cable television food show directed by his longtime partner Paul (Rudd). As the story begins it’s made clear that the relationship between the two men has seen better days, as evidenced by Paul’s response to a crew member who asks him why he stays with someone who irritates him so much.

Release date: Jun 29, 2018

“Part of me wants to stick around just to watch him die,” Paul says, not entirely kidding. He also observes about his partner that “he’s like Butch Cassidy, except not butch.”

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Erasmus and Paul’s comfortable life in an expansive ranch house becomes disrupted by the unexpected arrival of Angel (Jack Gore), Erasmus’ 10-year-old grandson he didn’t know he had. Angel’s widowed father Beau (Jake McDorman), the estranged offspring from an “experiment” with a woman that Erasmus had many years earlier, has been arrested for drug dealing. So the boy must either stay with his grandfather or enter foster care.  

The ensuing struggles of the two men to adjust to pseudo-fatherhood strikes more than a few predictable narrative beats, including the arrival of a social worker (Alison Pill) to investigate the situation. But it’s hard to remember a similar scenario to the couple’s blasé reaction to her discovery of their extensive porn collection or, when, during a meeting with Angel’s’s teacher, Erasmus mistakes the word “Felting” on a banner for “Felching.” There’s also a riotous scene featuring the two men in mid-coitus in which the shouted-out title Dances With Wolves becomes a drolly funny punchline.

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It won’t be hard for viewers to guess that Erasmus and Paul will find themselves transformed by their newfound parental responsibilities or that their relationship will become stronger as a result. The fun stems mainly from the amusing interactions between the two main characters so deliciously played by Coogan and Rudd. Both actors are at peak form here, with Coogan clearly having a blast as the flamboyant Erasmus and Rudd employing his expert deadpan delivery and gift for comic timing as the slow-burning Paul. They make the central relationship feel entirely believable, with the result that we truly come to care about whether the two men stay together. They also have excellent chemistry with their pint-sized co-star, who manages to steal more than a few scenes.

Ideal Home suffers from a few missteps, including a running gag about Taco Bell that feels more like blatant product placement than narrative necessity. And there will no doubt be some viewers who feel that the principal characters border on stereotypes. But they would be missing the fun of this good-hearted film whose positive message about same-sex parenting is emphasized in the end credits sequence featuring photos of numerous real-life examples.

Production companies: Remstar Studios, Lucky Monkey Pictures, Raygun/Baby Cow, Fortitude International Distributor: Brainstorm Media Cast: Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Jack Gore, Jake McDorman, Alison Pill Director-screenwriter: Andrew Fleming Producers: Maria Teresa Arida, Lucia Seabra, Gabrielle Tana, Aaron Ryder, Clark Peterson, Maxime Remillard Executive producers: Steve Coogan, Lisa Wolofsky Director of photography: Alexander Gruszynski Production designer: Anthony Fanning Editors: Jeffrey M. Werner, Byron Wong Composers: Martin Simpson, John Swihart Costume designer: Judith R. Gellman Casting: Pam Dixon

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Ideal Home review – Steve Coogan's celebrity chef cooks up a dud

In this unfunny comedy, Coogan plays half of a gay couple thrown into disarray by the unexpected arrival of his grandson

I t always hurts to see a clever British comedy star forced to conform to a tin-eared Hollywood idea of what a posh Brit should sound like. Russell Brand went through it with the Arthur remake , and now Steve Coogan endures the same thing in this entirely disposable comedy about a super-gay celebrity foodie called Erasmus presenting a cookery show on American TV.

He bickeringly lives in a lifestyle-magazine-type hacienda with his long-suffering partner and producer Paul – in which role Paul Rudd does his best. They are living the dream, kind of, until a tousle-haired kid turns up out of the blue. Bill (Jack Gore) turns out to be Erasmus’s grandson, via a rashly experimental heterosexual hookup ages ago, that Paul knew nothing about until now.

The resulting grownup son is now in jail on drugs charges but he managed to get Bill away before the police showed up, with instructions to look up his granddad in Santa Fe. Yikes! Do you suppose these squabbling selfish gays are going to be furious at first, but then grow to love the kid, and then face a Kramer vs Kramer crisis with the authorities?

Of course, Erasmus could quite plausibly have been Bill’s dad, not granddad, and that would have created a more prominent part for the boy’s mother. Disappointingly, there are no interesting roles for women in this film.

The movie concludes with a rather solemn series of photos of real-life gay couples with their babies, running over the credits, just to show that this film’s heart is in the right place. And so it is, but this means the film is chary of the cynicism or satire that it initially appears to be serving up. There are simply no funny lines here.

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• Drama films

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Ideal Home review

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd headline Ideal Home, a new comedy drama from the director of The Craft. Here's our review...

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Writer-director Andrew Fleming was a constant presence in multiplexes – well, his films were – across the 1990s. The Craft is the most remembered, but it’s well worth digging out Threesome and Dick too, as well as his 2008 Sundance hit, Hamlet 2 . In recent times, his film output has thinned, which given his natural comedic and human touch has been a pity.

Ideal Home , his first film since 2014’s Barefoot (itself his only feature in a decade, with Fleming instead concentrating on TV work), reunites him with Steve Coogan, his Hamlet 2 star. It’s an independent mix of comedy and drama, that casts Coogan as Erasmus, a celebrity television chef who bickers with his collaborator and boyfriend Paul (Paul Rudd). Their life is thrown down a very different path, though, when Erasmus’ 10-year old grandson Angel, through very film-y story circumstances, comes to live with them. The framework of the film becomes immediately apparent. Erasmus has no idea what to do with children, and has regrets over the relationship in the past that led to said child. Paul freaks at the idea of a child coming into their lives. The child won’t even tell the pair his name. Nothing could go wrong, right?

The story thus travels a familiar path, and yet there’s material here that lifts it. Coogan in particular is terrifically spiky as Erasmus, a blend of vanity and vulnerability, along with tip-top comedy timing, that serves the film well. Rudd, too, is the metaphorical straight man in the comedy partnership, and it’s unflashy, quality bearded work that he puts in.

Furthermore, the film’s funny. Watching Coogan and Rudd on screen together is a real pleasure, and Coogan offers the most memorable uttering of the words “Dances With Wolves” since the Academy handed Kevin Costner an Oscar.

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Bits of the film around the outsides of these characters don’t work quite as well. The moments where Angel’s father come onto the scene feel narratively necessary more than particularly interesting. Furthermore, the film does take a little while to get motoring, not really a luxury it has with its commendable hour and a half running time.

Also, the film treads a very fine line between pulling the leg of stereotypes, and relying on them. The core couple are utterly matter of fact about their relationship, and for the most part, so is the film. Yet it still has a few lines and moments here and there that feel a little out of their time.

But I think Ideal Home wins more than it loses. It certainly delivers as an engaging comedy, with a core central comedy duo I’d very much like to see on screen together again. Furthermore, there’s a montage of photos over the end credits that I found really quite touching, and made one of the points of the film far more potently than the movie itself.

It’s nature of the independent movie beast that Ideal Home has struggled to get distribution, with a VOD and small cinema release the best it’s going to get. It is worth seeking out, though, as there’s a good amount to enjoy here, and a fair few chuckles. It’s also good to see Andrew Fleming back making features. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before we see another.

Ideal Home is in selected UK cinemas from Friday, and on digital HD.

Simon Brew | @SimonBrew

Editor, author, writer, broadcaster, Costner fanatic. Now runs Film Stories Magazine.

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Review: Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd enliven gay adoption comedy ‘Ideal Home’

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Equal parts sweet and tart, director Andrew Fleming’s “Ideal Home” is the cinematic equivalent of Sour Patch Kids. The comedy is oh-so familiar and has the nutritional value of the sour sugar-coated, artificial dye-filled gummies, but it’s a delight while it lasts, thanks to Fleming’s bitingly funny script and the performances from Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd.

Like so many unexpecting adoptive parents of film and TV before them, quarreling couple Erasmus (Coogan) and Paul (Rudd) are unsure what to do with Erasmus’s grandson, Bill (Jack Gore), when he arrives at their doorstep, looking for a place to live after his father (Jake McDorman) has gone to jail. Erasmus and Paul find their life of dinner parties and cochinita pibil replaced by homework and Taco Bell, but they soon grow to appreciate Bill’s presence in their lives, their home and their relationship.

Fleming balances his script’s enjoyable mean streak with genuine tenderness, but “Ideal Home’s” success is a credit to both the writer-director and his leads. Coogan and Rudd display real chemistry, bouncing barbs off each other with an undercurrent of affection, and Gore is cute but never nauseatingly so.

Audiences have seen this story before in everything from “Three Men and a Baby” to “Big Daddy.” However, here the performances and the couple’s gay identity keep it fresh and add a sense of timeliness, and it never veers into preachy territory thanks to its gleefully dark sense of humor.

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‘Ideal Home’

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes

Playing: Laemmle Playhouse 7, Pasadena; and VOD

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Movie Review – Ideal Home (2018)

July 5, 2018 by Freda Cooper

Ideal Home , 2018.

Directed by Andrew Fleming Starring Steve Coogan, Paul Rudd, Jack Gore, Jake McDorman and Alison Pill.

An affluent gay couple have their lives turned upside down when they have to look after a ten year old boy.  Their glamorous lifestyle is at odds with the demands of the child, who also happens to be the estranged grandson of one of them.

We all love Paul Rudd, don’t we?  Cinema’s favourite Mr Nice Guy – despite his recent efforts to jokingly undermine his reputation – has hardly put a foot wrong so far.  Good looking, eminently likeable, with great comedy chops and more than enough acting ability to do something more serious as well.  What’s not to like?  His latest outing, Ideal Home , that’s what.

Admittedly, you get plenty of Rudd for your money, so fans won’t be disappointed in that sense.  He’s a TV director, also called Paul, in a long standing relationship with pompous TV chef Erasmus Brumble (Steve Coogan), living in a luxurious Santa Fe ranch style home.  They’re one of those couples who thrive on bickering and, because they work together, it hardly ever stops.  But their lifestyle is upturned by the arrival of Erasmus’s ten year old grandson, who they have to look after.  Whether they want to or not – and, indeed, whether the child wants them to or not.

We’ve been here before so many times that we’ve lost count: the selfish, substitute parent(s) having to step in and then finding satisfaction in something they’d hitherto avoided.  It’s been done so often that you start scrutinizing the film perhaps more than you would otherwise.   Admittedly, director and writer Andrew Fleming tries to add something new to the mix by focusing an openly gay couple (played by two straight actors) who work in the media, so appearances count for everything with them.  But it doesn’t make that much difference: the concept is still way too familiar and you just can’t get away from it.

Giving Coogan’s character an outlandish name like Erasmus Brumble is an open invitation to him to go right over the top and create a caricature.  Which is exactly what he does.  We’re watching Alan Partridge’s camp first cousin but in a Stetson, with all the inevitable tactlessness and clothes that are nearly as bad as the sports casual style favoured by Norwich’s Finest.  And, because Erasmus is a TV chef, it’s hard to avoid another comedy character, albeit a very British one: Miles Jupp’s Damien Trench from In And Out Of The Kitchen , another gay celebrity chef.  It’s not a recipe works, as Erasmus is pompous and selfish and you wonder why the more down to earth and sympathetic Paul puts up with him.  If there’s one thing that convinces about the two, it’s the bond between them: the two actors definitely create some chemistry on screen, despite Coogan’s over-acting.

While some of the comedy moments work, many more of them are utterly wince making, missing the target by a mile either because of the writing, bad timing or a combination of both.  The likes of Coogan and Rudd deserve better, but they don’t get it here.   And the whole thing comes adrift when the grandson is re-united with his absent father: the film loses its focus and the final section looks like a bolt-on with Fleming having completely lost his sense of direction.

As the credits roll, up comes a series of photographs of same sex parents with their children.  Which hammers home that a huge opportunity has gone begging, one to make a film about the challenges that go with that situation, despite an apparently more tolerant society.  It could still have been a comedy, or a dramedy, but one with subtlety and thought.  Instead we get something that’s the cinematic equivalent of Erasmus’s garish TV show and has little to offer in terms of either flavour or taste.  Especially taste.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★

Freda Cooper.  Follow me on Twitter .

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Review by Brian Eggert July 3, 2018

Steve Coogan has mastered the art of playing egomaniacs with an inflated sense of their own stardom, whether he’s the iconic radio personality Alan Partridge or an exaggerated version of himself in The Trip and its two wonderful sequels. In Ideal Home , Coogan plays Erasmus, a celebrity chef with a cooking show and a successful line of recipe books in a Southwestern ranch theme. His significant other for the last ten years, Paul (Paul Rudd), serves as his producer. They’re an irascible couple, with the short-fused Paul growing tired of Erasmus’ more self-centered antics, enough so that Paul has been thinking of taking a job for Rachel Ray. But director Andrew Fleming introduces a child into the mix, Erasmus’ grandchild from his estranged son, and in taking care of the boy, everyone learns some valuable lessons about family. With far more integrity and emotional heft than something like  Bad Grandpa or Dirty Grandpa ,  Ideal Home is a predictable story told with self-awareness about its social value, while Coogan and Rudd remain the centerpieces to this often hilarious, occasionally raunchy comedy.

Having escaped his imprisoned criminal father, Erasmus’ 10-year-old grandson, played by Jack Gore (the pyromaniac boy from Wonder Wheel ), goes from poverty to a privileged lifestyle in New Mexico. Named Angel, he insists on being called Bill. And so, Erasmus and Paul try to figure out how to raise Bill, while also realizing that they’ve both got a lot of growing up to do before they can become effective parental figures. It’s a cliché setup that the filmmaker, Fleming, treats as precious. The film asks the question: Can two men actually raise a child? But we ask: Isn’t that question dated by about thirty years, after the sitcom My Two Dads ? Aside from Bill’s initial, homophobic reaction, he quickly settles on the idea of having two father figures. As for the plot, there’s no grand custody case to win, no stern opposition to overcome; however, there’s a series of consolations that must be made with Bill in mind—namely, Erasmus and Paul must stop bickering, lock away their gay porn, end the reckless drinking, and learn to become responsible adults.

Annoyingly, one of the ways the parents learn to bond with the initially quiet, uncooperative Bill is taking him south of the border—meaning Taco Bell. It’s meant as an ironic choice since master chef Erasmus is used to more haute cuisine. But the product placement is unrelenting and becomes a significant story detail throughout (even more so than Taco Bell’s presence in Demolition Man , where the food chain was the only restaurant left in the new utopia). Of course, both men, devoted food snobs, secretly relish eating fast food, which serves as the film’s attempt to legitimatize Taco Bell. Fortunately, the natural charm of Rudd’s deadpan delivery and the outlandishness of Coogan’s onscreen ego lead to several roaring laughs. At one point, a representative from child protective services (Allison Pill) shows up at the house, and Erasmus appears, woken out of bed, in a t-shirt that reads “I shaved my balls for this ?”

At the same time, Ideal Home suffers from a condition of self-congratulatory progressiveness that recalls Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , which, in 1967, patted itself on the back for depicting an interracial relationship. Telling stories about marginalized people is important, but so is making those stories feel like more than a social cause. Fleming, who also wrote the film, never allows the audience to forget that Erasmus and Paul are LGBT parents. Rather than deal with it matter-of-factly, the writer-director has aimed his comedy at audiences somehow skeptical that two men could effectively raise a child. Over the end credits, for instance, Fleming shows us dozens of family photographs of real-life same-sex couples with their children, seemingly as further evidence that such family dynamics work. Chances are, if you’re watching this film, you already have no doubt of the effectiveness of LGBT parenting—and so Fleming’s argument seems unnecessary, if unmotivated by the plot.

Had Ideal Home introduced a character that questioned Erasmus and Paul’s abilities as parents because of their sexual orientation, then perhaps the story wouldn’t seem self-propelled—even the title acts as an argument against a nonexistent counter-argument. Instead, Fleming’s story serves as a touching portrait of same-sex parents that, of course, do a great job raising Bill. The lack of any real conflict aside, the comedy produces many laughs courtesy of the onscreen presence and confidence of both Coogan and Rudd, both acting flamboyant in a way that feels intentionally over-the-top, yet with a persistent ability to tug our heartstrings. Several lines and moments remain memorable and laugh-out-loud funny, regardless of its transparent ambitions as a socially progressive comedy. Fans of either Coogan or Rudd will enjoy Ideal Home for its purely comedic strains, and the evident chemistry between its two stars.

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Ideal Home Review

04 Jul 2018

Few human beings could possibly live up to a name like Erasmus Brumble, but it suits Steve Coogan ’s character in Ideal Home to a T: a narcissistic, entitled, and fabulously gay bon viveur with a modestly successful lifestyle show that allows him to indulge all of these qualities. He’s the antithesis of his husband-slash-producer Paul ( Rudd ), a quiet, bearded intellectual. Maritally speaking, they’re functionally dysfunctional, but their acidic bickering and sniping clearly masks a deep affection for one another.

Naturally, the arrival of Erasmus’ ten-year-old grandson throws a spanner into their well-manicured works, moving into their plush New Mexico pueblo while his dad (Jake McDorman), Erasmus’ son from a pre-gay one night stand, serves some jail time. “We can’t have a kid,” Paul complains. “We are kids.” He’s half right: Erasmus is the overgrown man-child incapable of thinking of anyone but himself, but Paul proves surprisingly adept at the parenting thing, even though he says it’s like “babysitting the boy from The Shining ”.

A decade ago, writer-director Andrew Fleming gifted Coogan a memorable film role in the uneven, but still underrated, Hamlet 2 , and here he helps Coogan to craft an even more indelible character, whether he’s blithely asking for the wine list at Taco Bell, or self-mythologising by claiming to have studied at Oxford. “You went to a cooking school in the town of Oxford,” Paul reminds him.

Of course, Coogan gets all of the fun, flashy stuff to do, but look closely and it’s clear that the Rain Man Effect applies: Rudd is every bit as good in the less showy role. The film is at its best when we’re hanging with the Coogan-Rudd comedy dream team, and at its weakest when it ‘goes all Hollywood’ and people (especially the kid) start learning and growing. But Ideal Home has it where it counts.

‘Ideal Home’ Film Review: Paul Rudd and Steve Coogan Become Unlikely Dads, Hilariously

Andrew Fleming’s charming tale of two gay men embracing paternity displays the writer-director’s trademark wit and visual style

Writer-director Andrew Fleming is one of the best and most underrated makers of comedies today, and his new film “Ideal Home” is delightful in spite of a premise that sounds un-promising.

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd play Erasmus and Paul, a gay couple who are saddled with Erasmus’s grandson (Jack Gore, “Billions”) after Erasmus’ ne’er-do-well son Beau (Jake McDorman, the upcoming “Murphy Brown” reboot) is arrested. Trying to evade the police in the first scene, Beau gets stuck in a window, and Fleming lingers on a shot of his behind in tighty-whities in a way that somehow feels more kindly than lecherous; certainly there are worse ways to enliven a basically expository sequence.

Erasmus is a popular and snobby TV food show host based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Paul is his producer; they have been together for ten years and they bicker near-constantly. “Part of me wants to stick around just to watch him die,” Paul tells one of their crew, a remark that is so over-the-top in its viciousness that it shows just how much Paul is in love with Erasmus.

The tone of “Ideal Home” can be very sharp, and some of the satirical scenes have real bite. Fleming’s writing is at its best here when he is sending up the exaggerated sensitivity of liberals when they are dealing with a minority and not sure what might offend them.

Erasmus’ grandson was named Angel by his parents, but the boy wants to be called Bill, and this is permitted by his new gay guardians. At a party for Bill, a mother looks at Erasmus and Paul drinking the beer she gave them and says, “Would you rather have white wine?” in a very panicked voice, as if she might have caused them some major kind of offense, and it is the exaggerated scale of her panic that puts over this acute social observation.

In dealing with the fights between Erasmus and Paul, Fleming displays a similar kind of edge and insight. Paul wears a beard and has tattoos on his arms, and he is a somewhat self-consciously masculine gay guy, and so of course he really explodes with anger when Erasmus makes fun of him for trying to sound butch. Coogan is particularly good in this moment, making a wide-eyed, childlike face as if he knows that he has really managed to hurt Rudd’s Paul.

Fleming goes against the grain of modern comedies because he never tries to get laughs with free-floating vulgarities or bathroom humor, and he gets away with his bolder jokes because there is always a sense of hard-earned warmth underneath them. It’s a sensibility that stretches all the way back to his melancholy and sexy second feature film “Threesome” and cult favorites like “Dick” and “Hamlet 2.”

Most unusual of all, Fleming is a comedy director who constructs his films visually to give pleasure, however modestly. Every shot in one of his movies is composed to give a sense of balance and to emphasize the shapeliness of interiors, and his eye is alive to beauty, whether it is the beauty of a pair of lamps or a doorframe or the rear end of the convict father in his underwear. And maybe that shot of Beau stuck in the window does have a purpose, in that he is a notably unsympathetic character; perhaps Fleming is saying, “This guy is a jerk, but at least there’s this in his favor.”

“Ideal Home” contains some big laughs, especially a sex scene between Erasmus and Paul that ends with Erasmus crying, “Oh, ‘Dances with Wolves’!” (It makes sense only in context.) And Rudd brings real cant-deflating style to a moment where Beau priggishly says that he is sober and Paul responds, “So am I. Unlike you, however, I’m going to do something about it.” On the debit side, Bill only wants to eat at Taco Bell, and all of Fleming’s talent can’t make this any more than a blatant commercial.

At 85 or so minutes, “Ideal Home” does not overstay its welcome, like so many lengthy Judd Apatow (and Judd Apatow-influenced) productions, and surely Fleming should be making a feature comedy every year.

‘Ideal Home’ Review: Paul Rudd and Steve Coogan Dazzle In an Ill-Fitted Story

Not all of this movie’s shortcomings can be overlooked for a charming paul rudd and his nice beard..

There’s no official sub-genre for movies featuring a selfish grownup who’s suddenly thrust into the parenting of a child, but there are certainly enough of those movies to create one. They’re heart-warming, albeit predictable, tales that help us believe even the crappiest people are capable of shaping up. Few of them stray from a straightforward story, but Andrew Fleming ‘s latest feature  Ideal Home provides more interesting subjects to the unprepared-parents cliche by making those parents two bickering gay men.

Just as the formula goes,  Ideal Home  begins with the abandoned child Bill ( Jack Gore ) finding his surrogate parents, Erasmus ( Steve Coogan ) and Paul ( Paul Rudd ). It opens rather somberly for a comedy as Bill watches his real father being taken to jail. Oppositely, his parents-in-waiting don’t live a happy life either. Erasmus, a pompous cooking show host likely modeled after Ina Garten, and his long-term partner Paul, who works on Erasmus’s show, bicker on set in front of the rest of the crew. They host an extravagant dinner party for other well-to-do guests, something that’s apparently their specialty for avoiding their problems. They’re set up perfectly for the audience — they’re selfish, materialistic, and completely out of touch with the rest of the world. Listening to them joke about having to deal with screams of children in Syria while trying to eat their authentic cuisine, it’s clear their privileged life is about to be upended. Bill quietly informs Erasmus he is his surprise grandson. The whole party reacts superficially like Bill is just another silly story that happened at one of Erasmus and Paul’s crazy parties. It makes for a funny scene and fits with their character, but it speaks to the problem of the entire film moving forward.

Rudd and Coogan have fantastic chemistry and bring all of the laughs pretty single-handedly. Their relationship is the strongest aspect of the movie, despite being a rocky relationship in actuality. It’s clear Fleming spent the right amount of effort making sure this gay couple feels real and not just a gimmick. Their fights are hilarious and sometimes sad when we are dying for a hint that this movie has some emotion. At odds for most of the movie, they are exactly what you want out of a comedy couple forced to deal with an issue together. Fleming could’ve put them in any type of comedy and they would be enjoyable to watch and make up. As entertaining as Erasmus and Paul are, though, they’re only half of the movie.

Fleming nails fleshing out the couple, but just as important to develop is the child they have to take care of. Bill is where the movie loses its substance. The circumstances in which he lands into the hands of Erasmus and Paul are wonky but easy enough to look past once the film gets going, but the boy’s lack of personality is harder to overcome when it never improves.

Bill is boring, but at no fault to the actor who plays him. When we finally get some insight into what he has been through in his tough young life, the kid delivers a good performance. So much of the movie sees Bill as a quiet addition to a scene with Erasmus and Paul clearly dominating attention rather than being an intricate part of the conflict as well. He’s talked about a lot of the movie but doesn’t actually do much. What made  Paper Moon (1973) so fun was that Addie’s personality was an equal match for Moses and made his attempts to control her impossible and entertaining. That’s what  Ideal Home  is missing despite the joy of Erasmus and Paul’s interactions.

In turn, if Bill isn’t fleshed out than neither is his relationship with his new parents. Every movie involving that kind of relationship needs to begin with the surrogate parents having no way they can take care of this kid as the child threatens their life as they know it. That, of course, leaves no other option and they have to shape up and look after the child. Something shifts, they grow close and now they need each other. Just as they’ve got everything figured out, a threat comes along trying to tear them apart which they triumphantly overcome.

Ideal Home  tries to follow that outline but in a way that feels inorganic from the start. Bill never threatens Erasmus and Paul’s extravagant life or anything else important to them. It’s not that difficult of a decision to take care of him. Every obstacle after that is menial and solved way too quickly to mean anything to the audience or their relationship.

Fleming’s good intentions with  Ideal Home  make it worth watching if you’re looking for a jovial story with diverse characters. It has some good laughs and an occasional emotional moment, but it lacks the substance to be anything but just okay.

Ideal Home opens in limited release starting June 29th.

Related Topics: Comedy , LGBTQ , Paul Rudd

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• What To Watch Next?

Erasmus and Paul have their life turned upside down when a ten-year old boy shows up at their door claiming to be Erasmus' grandson. Reluctant to give up their extravagant lifestyles to be parents, they must adapt or risk losing the child. A really funny movie that has it's dramatic moments.

Ideal Home stars Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd ( Ant-Man & The Wasp , Ghostbusters: Afterlife ) as a couple who must contend with an unexpected addition to their family.

Coogan plays a flamboyant and irresponsible celebrity chef called Erasmus. Paul, is his husband and the producer of his tv show. Together more than ten years, life for the couple looks good on camera. But behind closed doors, their relationship is really on the rocks.

That is until a ten year old boy shows up at their door with a note informing Erasmus that he is his grandson.

A dalliance nearly 30 years earlier had resulted in a son called Beau. Erasmus played no part in his life so is quite surprised to know he even has a grandchild.

Beau has been arrested and is sitting in prison. With nobody else to look after the child, Erasmus and Paul must take on the parental duties.

Utterly unequipped to deal with a child, especially when they don't even know his name, the duo face a crash course in parenting.

Erasmus is flighty and indulgent, Paul tries to provide stability. And while Ideal Home is peppered with really funny moments, there are also some more dramatic scenes. The couple's relationship can not be fixed instantly. They risk losing the child to Social Services and what happens when Beau gets out of prison?

Ideal Home is a funny, whimsical movie that is really enjoyable to watch. Coogan ( from The Dinner ) and Rudd are brilliant together.

And for all the laughter and outrageous moments, they can still pull it out of the bag when it comes to highlighting the more serious parts of their relationship.

It may a little known movie but it's worth a watch. Will it win any awards, no. But that doesn't mean it won't pass an hour and half easily. It's funny, it's sweet, it's nice.

• Great Chemistry Between Coogan And Rudd
• Solid Blend Of Comedy And Drama
• Some Jokes Miss The Mark

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Ideal Home is an irresistibly funny, irreverent comedy on gay parenting, featuring a camped up Steve Coogan at the top of his game in a sparkling double act with an equally excellent Paul Rudd.

Review: (rolanstein) Going by the trailer, I had some doubts about Ideal Home – to be specific, how much I could stand of Steve Coogan hamming it up as an extravagantly gay character abruptly shoved into a parental role. Just goes to show, yet again, the folly of forming preconceptions based on a trailer. Coogan and his co-star Paul Rudd bring the house down in a sparkling comedic double act as flamboyant celeb chef Erasmus and his partner in work and play Paul, respectively.

The couple is middle-aged, going on, oh, 17. Their très well appointed (and très enviable) adobe home is party central for half of Santa Fe, it seems. However, there are hints that all the fine food, parties, booze and cocaine may not be pure hedonism, functioning instead to paper over some cracks in the boys’ relationship. Then Erasmus’ grandson Angel (Jack Gore), whom he has never met, turns up unannounced at one of their dinner parties, and everything changes. Sort of.

The kid is taciturn at first, not even divulging his name, which he hates. He plucks Bill out of the air as his preferred handle, and his reluctant foster parents are happy to oblige. He’s cynical and worldly for his tender years, as well he might be. His mother is no longer around and his father, Erasmus’ no-hoper son from an early hetero dalliance, has been jailed for the umpteenth time. Bill has sought out Erasmus because he has nowhere else to go.

The pressure is turned up on Erasmus and Paul’s relationship as they struggle to integrate their indulgent lifestyle with the sudden responsibility of looking after a child, but the laughs keep coming. In fact, they escalate. A visit from a social worker who calls to check on Bill’s welfare and discovers the lads’ gay porn collection is a hoot. But the loudest of the LOL moments comes when Bill gives a talk at school about what not to say to gay parents. He does a Little Johnny par excellence, leaving the despairing teacher tomato-faced and the class (and audience) in stitches. Actually, second-loudest: watch for the scene referencing Dances With Wolves . I’ll say no more…

Of course, there’s nothing particularly original about the kid-foisted-on-to-reluctant-parents set-up, but that doesn’t matter when the comedy is as successful as it is here. Working gleefully off writer/director Andrew Fleming’s witty, irreverent screenplay, Coogan and Rudd combine brilliantly to hilarious effect. Their comic timing is spot on and the obvious fun they have in their roles is contagious. Resistance is useless (I tried for the first 20 minutes or so).

Ideal Home has a serious message to impart: ie, that above all kids need love, care and support, the provision of which has nothing to do with parental sexual orientation. However, Fleming is never hostage to his underlying agenda, never didactic. And in a sense he covers all bases with the dual irony of the title of the film.

On one hand, he’s wryly taunting those who still cling to their anti-gay-parent attitudes; on the other, he’s acknowledging that his film is a camped-up fantasy. This is made abundantly clear in the final scene. The foster dads and Bill are driving down the road when Paul wryly points out “a fucking rainbow” arcing across the sky before them.

Ideal Home is one of those cinematic delights that might be broadly grouped with off-beat feelgood family flicks like Little Miss Sunshine and The Kids are All Right – except funnier and a whole lot campier. I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying the hell out of it.

Ideal Home features: Paul Rudd , Steve Coogan , Jack Gore Writer/Director: Andrew Fleming Runtime: 1hr 30m

Australian release date: Ideal Home at Luna Cinema , Leederville from June 21, 2018

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Movie review: ideal home.

Ideal Home isn’t a great movie, but it’s also not the disgustingly sweet mess I was expecting from a story about a bickering couple who come together when a child is dropped into their lives. It helps that it’s filled with unapologetically selfish characters that it never tries to fully redeem and has an acerbic sense of humor.

Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd play the self-indulgent bickering couple, Erasmus and Paul, whose love comes from taunting each other. Coogan and Rudd do a great job making difficult characters believable, and it helps that they have chemistry. I can’t imagine these roles in the hands of lesser actors. The ten year old boy, Bill, who is dropped into the couple’s lives is played by Jack Gore, who does a decent job with his role, especially for a child actor. As would be expected from a child raised by a drug addict father, his past is dark and he has issues. And since this isn’t a serious movie, Bill doesn’t have the hard edge that would come from a child with such a disturbing past. He’s just a bit ornery.

I didn’t expect any of the characters to be completely fleshed out, so I wasn’t disappointed. The relationship between Bill and his grandfathers is a bit rushed but has moments of honest emotion. I particularly enjoyed the scene where Erasmus and Paul learn of Bill’s past. Rudd and Coogan’s reactions feel honest, as does the way they quickly brush reality to the side.

What I enjoyed about this movie is that it ends with the central characters having grown from the experience, but they’re not that far removed from who they were at the beginning.

If you can ignore huge plot holes, keep your expectations low, and enjoy your humor off center, you might enjoy Ideal Home . 

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