The Best and the Brightest

I saw this movie at a sneak preview screening in New York in March and I have to say that it's one of the funniest, most original comedies I've seen in a long time. It's not just a stupid-humor movie like the Farrelly Brothers and it's not a fancy highbrow comedy that only certain people will get either.

It seems to be about a couple trying to get their daughter into kindergarten, but that's just the setup - their attempts to do so start spinning more and more out of control and it becomes this crazy, fun R-rated farce. The director was at a talkback after the screening and he said he was trying to make a movie in the style of "Tootsie" and "A Fish Called Wanda," and I think he succeeded.

Neil Patrick Harris is perfect as the straight man, and Bonnie Somerville is adorable as his wife, but it's the off-the-wall characters around them who really steal the show: Amy Sedaris as the consultant they hire, Jenna Stern as the school's headmistress, Christopher McDonald as a Bill Clinton-type, known only as "The Player," Kate Mulgrew as his wife, John Hodgman as a nerdy and hilarious school board member, and British comedian Peter Serafinowicz as NPH's character's oversexed best friend.

There are two particularly hysterical sequences in the movie that I won't spoil, but totally brought the house down at my screening - a book club scene, where all of the above characters have to read some R-rated "poetry" and discuss it like they're in class, and a fundraiser/party scene where NPH's character is put on the spot and has to try to deliver his "poetry" live.

Find a way to see this movie. You won't be sorry.