Miguel Arteta returns to Sundance with a comedy about a group of insurance salesmen who use the opportunity to attend an annual convention in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as a way to escape their doleful existence . . . like Vegas but with corn.
Tim Lippe has been living in a small town his whole life and gets a rude awakening when he arrives in the “giant” metropolis of Cedar Rapids. However, his boyish charm and innocence eventually win over his fellow conventioneers, but he becomes disheartened when he uncovers corporate corruption. When it seems his life—and chances to succeed—are completely topsy-turvy, he finds his own unjaded way to turn things around.
Cedar Rapids deftly straddles that line between laughing at and with its subjects thanks to Arteta’s skilled direction and Ed Helms’s hilarious, yet thoughtful, performance. John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, and Isiah Whitlock Jr. play off Helms perfectly to fashion characters that are eccentric, yet honest. Filled with quotable dialogue and unforgettable scenes, Cedar Rapids achieves the impossible: it makes insurance fun. –Sundance Film Festival
Miguel Arteta (born 1965) is a Puerto Rican director of film and television, known for his independent film Chuck & Buck (2000), for which he received the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award, and Cedar Rapids (2011).
Born in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Peruvian father and Spanish mother, Arteta grew up all over Latin America due to his father’s job as a Chrysler auto parts salesman. He went to high school in Costa Rica but was expelled, and went to live with his sister in Boston, Massachusetts, graduating from The Cambridge School of Weston in Massachusetts. He then attended Harvard University’s documentary program where he learned filmmaking. He eventually left for Wesleyan University, where he met future collaborators Matthew Greenfield and Mike White.
After graduating in 1989, his student film Every Day is a Beautiful Day won a Student Academy Award, which got him a job as a second assistant camera to Jonathan Demme on the documentary Cousin Bobby. Demme then… read more
Affable comedy with a likable cast (especially the always entertaining John C. Reilly at his best), though it is predictable and plays safely within its quirky indie comedy territory. A pleasant enough watch, but only light-weight entertainment.
A film that just never seems to find it's tone/purpose. Sometimes it feels like its striving to be another 'office space' or 'hangover' and at other times like it wants to taken seriously in a more satorical way like 'thank you for smoking'. Problem is its neither. The 4 leads play together well but none save perhaps Heche come off as realistic characters. Helms talents don't shine through here.
There is a trend in comedies as of late, and that’s to be just like The Hangover. There has been more films coming out about a group of about three to four guys getting trashed away… read review
