A week ago, we reported on Paul Rudd signing up to star in **My Idiot Brother, the tale of a man who brings chaos into the lives of his more ambitious sisters. Now the film has begun loading up with acting talent as Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel, Emily Mortimer and Rashida Jones have all locked in contracts to appear alongside him.
Banks, who was Rudd’s love interest in Role Models (we’re guessing there will be less snogging this time around), is his career-focused singleton sis who is trying to concentrate on her big break in journalism.
Deschanel, meanwhile, will be playing a bisexual in a relationship with Jones, whose flaky attitude to life is causing problems for her responsible, down-to-earth partner.
And Mortimer is a dedicated mother living a seemingly perfect life that leaves her blind to the fact that her marriage is falling apart. Rudd’s freewheeling sibling will visit them all and despite causing chaos in their lives, also help them to see where they’re going wrong (generally it takes an irresponsible male to help women see the error of their ways). But hopefully with more comedic action and less hugging/learning, because that makes Baby Jerry Seinfeld cry.
Jesse Peretz is directing the film, which will shoot from a script by Peretz' own sister, Evgenia Peretz, and David Schisgall. The cameras will start rolling next month in New York.
Despite the pat-sounding plot strands, we’re actually interested to see how this turns out given the high calibre of funny women (and the Rudd) involved.