Small-town guy experiences big city in quirky ‘Cedar Rapids’

Some movies laugh with their characters. Some movies laugh at them.

And some movies, like "Cedar Rapids," try to do both.

This fish-out-of-water comedy doesn't always succeed in maintaining that delicate balance, but if you're looking for a movie that tempers its raunch with aw-shucks sweetness, here's the ticket.

"Cedar Rapids" isn't just a fish-out-of-water tale, it's a small-town-guy-on-the-loose-in-the-big-city story.

And when the big city is Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the small town had better be a teeny-tiny throwback to the "Happy Days" era.

Welcome to Brown Valley, Wis., the cozy hamlet our hero, Tim Lippe (pronounced "lippy"), calls home.

An achingly earnest man-child (played by "Office" and "Hangover" veteran Ed Helms), Tim was orphaned in his youth -- and therefore clings to such surrogate parents as Bill (hearty Stephen Root), his boss at Brown Valley Insurance, and Mrs. Vanderhei (Sigourney Weaver, a droll delight), his seventh-grade teacher. It's tough for Tim to call her anything but Mrs. Vanderhei -- even during their regular afternoon assignations.

Nothing could possibly part them, at least in Tim's eyes.

Except the unexpected chance to represent Brown Valley Insurance at the annual industry convention in Cedar Rapids.

It's a big responsibility, because Brown Valley Insurance once again will compete for the convention's coveted Two Diamonds Award.

It's also a big adventure, because Tim's never been anywhere but Brown Valley, and this business trip will enable him to experience such thrilling firsts as clearing airport security and presenting his company credit card to the hotel desk clerk.

And what a hotel! Clearly Cedar Rapids' answer to Caesars Palace (or, at the very least, Holiday Inn), complete with minibars in the rooms, karaoke in the lounge and a glimmering swimming pool in the hotel atrium.

Tim's had instructions from his boss on whom to seek out -- and whom to avoid -- at the convention.

Topping the curry-favor list: Orin Helgesson (Kurtwood Smith), the insurance association's self-righteous president.

And then there's Convention Enemy No. 1: rival agent Dean Ziegler (John C. Reilly), a motormouth party animal who, inevitably, turns out to be one of Tim's suitemates, along with mild-mannered Ronald Wilkes ("The Wire's" deadpan Isiah Whitlock Jr.), who's as refined as Ziegler is crude.

And let's not forget convention fox Joan Ostrowski-Fox (slyly saucy Anne Heche), who treats the annual get-together as a getaway from her workaday routine, or beguiling Bree ("Arrested Development's" rueful Alia Shawkat ), who patrols the hotel entrance, gauging visitors' interest in having a private party. (Tim, ever the gentleman, offers her candy so often she dubs him "Butterscotch.")

Inevitably, other adventures await our hero, who manages to maintain his sense of self -- even as his illusions crumble around him, destroyed by all the boozing, bed-hopping and back-stabbing on display.

It's all in good fun. At least that's what "Cedar Rapids" (which was filmed in Michigan, not Iowa) keeps insisting.

But there's an undercurrent of aren't-these-yokels-amusing disdain that creeps in frequently enough to give the movie an inescapably condescending edge.

Still, screenwriter Phil Johnston (reportedly a Wisconsin native himself) manages to provide a few clever variations in "Cedar Rapids' " script, which echoes many worthier predecessors ("The 40-Year-Old Virgin" among them) while following a predictably twisty course.

Director Miguel Arteta, fortunately, has demonstrated his affinity for combining the staid and the skewed in such offbeat comedies as "Chuck and Buck" and "The Good Girl." And that talent holds true throughout "Cedar Rapids," giving the often frantic action an enjoyably quirky zing.

Much of that, however, Arteta owes to his ace players, who resist the temptation (well, most of the time) to overdo what's already overdone in the script.

Reilly in particular captures the hangdog melancholy behind his forced, life-of-the-party boor, and Helms once again conveys the Boy Scout idealism of a character who tiptoes dangerously close to caricature, yet never steps over the line separating them.

They may not be characters for the ages. But they're pleasant enough company -- in "Cedar Rapids" and at a theater near you.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.