What happens in Cedar Rapids, stays in Cedar Rapids. That spin on the traditional Las Vegas slogan is voiced in Miguel Arteta’s latest — and given the presence of Ed Helms in the lead role, and a plot that involves crazy things happening in a city that’s not the home of the gang of lead characters, it might be easy to assume that this is simply a midwestern spin on The Hangover. But that incongruous line, which equates the bustling not-quite-metropolis of Iowa with Sin City, is actually delivered in a poignant moment, and not to play on the laughs inherent in that disconnect. It’s an example of the ways in which Cedar Rapids really isn’t much like The Hangover: it never gets so out of hand in pursuit of crazy comedy that it forgets the basic humanity of its characters.
For Tim Lippe (Helms), a small-town Wisconsin insurance salesman, Cedar Rapids might as well be Vegas. He’s never traveled outside his small world; when he’s hastily sent to an industry conference (after an ostensibly wholesome coworker who was supposed to make the trip dies of auto-erotic asphyxiation), every moment holds a new discovery. Some are thrilling — wow, a Chevy Cobalt rental car!; jeepers, a pool inside the hotel! — while others are cause for anxiety: a hotel clerk taking a credit card imprint when he checks in, or the shock of an “afro-american” man (who turns out to be his roommate) appearing in his hotel room.
Lippe is ridiculously childlike. So much so that at the start of the film, it’s revealed that he’s carrying on an affair with his former middle school teacher. The sex is the only part of their relationship that doesn’t continue to follow the teacher/student roles, and Sigourney Weaver plays her with a maternal charm that is both sweet and a little oogy in this context. Someone this naive ought to come across cartoonish on the screen, a guy so sheltered that he doesn’t even realize when a prostitute (Arrested Development‘s Alia Shawkat) is propositioning him. Credit Helms with making him a real character, believable even as he does borderline unbelievable things.
