A softsatire of office competition and corporate climbing, Dinner for Schmucks is also a comedy of errors thatexcept for acouple of overheated, silly scenesis consistently funny. Tim (Rudd) runs intohis idiotliterallyon the street. Barry (Steve Carell) is in the road tryingto retrieve a dead mouse for his taxidermy rodent collection. He carefullyassembles lavish dioramas of mice in human settings, stitching clothing andpainstakingly bending wire for spectacles. Barry is an outsider artist withoutknowing it, in total contrast to the pretentiously egomaniacal painter andperformance artist Kieran (Jemaine Clement), whose work is being represented byTim’s sparkling girlfriend, Julie (Stephanie Szostak). When Tim’s engagementplans unravel in a series of comic mishaps, Julie considers sharing the wildlife with Kieran.
Butromance is only a subplot in a film about innocence and cruelty. Tim knows thatbringing Barry to a fancy party only to make fun of him is wrong, yet the lureof money and a higher position in his equity management firm is a strongcurrent that is hard to swim against. For his part, Barry is unaware of what’sabout to befall him. Although not without a streak of mischief, he’sessentially guileless, walking through a child’s world of wonder withoutgetting the irony, the sarcasm, the subterfuge of adult life. While Schmucks is based on the French film The Dinner Game, Carell brings a deeperresonance to his character, if one cares to look. He’s almost a contemporarycomical rendition of Dostoyevsky’s TheIdiot.
Dinner for Schmucks pulls off a neat Hollywood trick, allowing the audience to laugh at theunfortunate Barry while mocking his pompous tormentors. The tone is light butnot without bittersweet moments, and although the hilariously out-of-step Barrysteals every scene, the protagonist is actually Tim, an everyman in a suitforced to ponder at what price success.
