Our Idiot Brother is a 2011 American comedy-drama film directed by Jesse Peretz and starring Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel and Emily Mortimer. The script was written by Evgenia Peretz and David Schisgall based on Jesse and Evgenia Peretz's story, and tells the story of a dimwitted but idealistic and well-meaning man who intrudes and wreaks havoc in his three sisters' lives. The film was co-produced by Anthony Bregman, Peter Saraf and Marc Turtletaub. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and was given wide release on August 26, 2011. The film received mostly positive reviews, with critics praising the story and Rudd's performance, but criticizing the uneven script. Plot Ned Rochlin, a biodynamic agriculture farmer who is living with his girlfriend, Janet, gets arrested for selling pot to a uniformed police officer. Ned has three sisters: Miranda, a journalist hoping to get her first major article with Vanity Fair and harboring feelings for her neighbor, Jeremy; Natalie, a hipster living with her girlfriend Cindy and other roommates; and Liz, a housewife married to Dylan, a documentary filmmaker who is inattentive; they strictly control their son River, unable to express himself or choose his activities, putting him in interpretive dance class when he longs to take taekwondo. Paroled, Ned discovers Janet has ditched him for mellow Billy, and no longer wishes him on the farm. Billy suggests he may be able to rent the goat barn out back. Initially staying at his mother's, Ned asks to stay with Liz. While he bunks in River's room, he is told to help with Dylan's documentary about Belarussian ballerina Tatiana. One day, Ned is told to watch the car while Dylan interviews Tatiana. When a police officer asks him to move it, Ned runs upstairs for the keys and discovers Dylan naked with Tatiana. Dylan claims that he was only making her "comfortable". He is later kicked out of Liz's after River announces Ned's legal trouble at an important school admission interview. Miranda reluctantly asks Ned to chauffeur while she interviews Lady Arabella, but is legally unable to pry into her scandalous past, while he charms Arabella. At her benefit dinner, she shares personal details of her life with him. Staying with Miranda, Ned mentions Dylan's nude interview, and she deduces he is cheating on Liz. Realizing he has the details she needs about Arabella, she forces him to tell her.