Meet the house guest from hell Randy Dupree, a perpetual bachelor and slacker who outstays his welcome with newly-wed friends Carl and Molly. As Dupree becomes a fixture in their home, his outrageous antics in the bathroom and bedroom ensure that three becomes not just a crowd but a bloody nightmare...

You, Me and Dupree is a romantic comedy, of sorts. Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon star as newly weds Molly and Carl. Dupree (Owen Wilson) is an old friend of Carl's and when he gets fired from his job for taking time off work to be the best man at his friend's wedding he ends up moving in with the newly married couple.

Possibly the biggest problem is that while the comedy relies on the audience warming to Molly and Carl, it totally needs you to root for Dupree. Sadly the set up isn't great. Molly and Carl already live an idyllic lifestyle with little in the way of financial worries. When Dupree arrives on the scene his personality is all over the place. Is he a man child with a high sex drive? Is he a sociopath? (he only ever seems to care about himself in the early stages of the movie). Is he a lazy slacker?

The first half of the movie sees Dupree destroying his friend's life. But is this intentional or accidental. There are subtle little scenes that indicate at the start of the movie that he might fancy Molly (why else does he stop his childish behaviour and leap off the bar when he sees her enter? Although to be fair that could be because an older relative also appears). And almost everything he does seems to be angled to drive a wedge between Molly and Carl.

The second half of the movie sees Carl believing that Dupree is after Molly (which to be fair his earlier actions had indicated) but the audience knows that this is not the case. Now Dupree's personality has totally changed and he lets his guard down around Molly (just at the point where her relationship with Carl is at a low point). And now Dupree is a total whizz in the kitchen and we get to she his sensitive side.

There's a running gag about Dupree's hero being Lance Armstrong (Armstrong makes a couple of brief cameo appearances in the movie) and this leads to possibly the movie's only laugh out loud moment (retrospectively) when Armstrong's autobiography is discussed: It's Not About the Bike. No, Lance it's not, is it? We know that now.

Extras include Alternate Ending (1 min, 04 sec with optional commentary); Deleted Scenes (6 min, 18 sec with optional commentary); Dupree's Memories (18 min, 32 sec behind the scenes feature); Outakes (3 min, 52 sec); Spoof Trailer (2 min, 07 sec that shows the movie as a horror film with Carl as a psychopath).

You also get two full length audio commentaries. One is with the Directors and the other is with the Producer and Writer. Neither are essential listening, and the two on occasion contradict how scenes came about. But it was interesting to hear that Seth Rogen's beard in the bar scene was fake (as this scene was shot much later when he was already clean shaven for another project). Wilson appears to have come up with so many of the film's ideas (including the idea of "Carlness"; the school Career Day speech and the Best Man patch); and the fact that Michael Douglas showed Dillon how to strangle Wilson without hurting him.

It's not a bad film, it's just that it doesn't really bring much new to the table.

7

Darren Rea