Few human beings could possibly live up to a name like Erasmus Brumble, but it suits Steve Coogan’s character in Ideal Home to a T: a narcissistic, entitled, and fabulously gay bon viveur with a modestly successful lifestyle show that allows him to indulge all of these qualities. He’s the antithesis of his husband-slash-producer Paul (Rudd), a quiet, bearded intellectual. Maritally speaking, they’re functionally dysfunctional, but their acidic bickering and sniping clearly masks a deep affection for one another.
Naturally, the arrival of Erasmus’ ten-year-old grandson throws a spanner into their well-manicured works, moving into their plush New Mexico pueblo while his dad (Jake McDorman), Erasmus’ son from a pre-gay one night stand, serves some jail time. “We can’t have a kid,” Paul complains. “We are kids.” He’s half right: Erasmus is the overgrown man-child incapable of thinking of anyone but himself, but Paul proves surprisingly adept at the parenting thing, even though he says it’s like “babysitting the boy from The Shining”.
A decade ago, writer-director Andrew Fleming gifted Coogan a memorable film role in the uneven, but still underrated, Hamlet 2, and here he helps Coogan to craft an even more indelible character, whether he’s blithely asking for the wine list at Taco Bell, or self-mythologising by claiming to have studied at Oxford. “You went to a cooking school in the town of Oxford,” Paul reminds him.
Of course, Coogan gets all of the fun, flashy stuff to do, but look closely and it’s clear that the Rain Man Effect applies: Rudd is every bit as good in the less showy role. The film is at its best when we’re hanging with the Coogan-Rudd comedy dream team, and at its weakest when it ‘goes all Hollywood’ and people (especially the kid) start learning and growing. But Ideal Home has it where it counts.