Did you know that there’s a movie out there starring Owen Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, Amy Poehler, the late Edward Hermann, “The Office’s” Jenna Fischer, Peter Bogdanovich, and even Melissa Rauch from “The Big Bang Theory?” What if I told you the movie is written and directed by Matthew Weiner, a veteran of “The Sopranos” who went on to create “Mad Men?” Are you wondering why you haven’t seen it before?! It’s probably because that movie, 2014’s “Are You Here,” was a huge flop — but I’ll get back to that in just a moment. First, what is “Are You Here” — which is currently proving pretty popular on Amazon Prime Video — about?
When we first meet Wilson’s local weatherman Steve Dallas, he’s a womanizer who barely does his job — often outsourcing the actual weather predictions to his assistant Delia Shepherd (Lauren Lapkus) before taking credit for them on air — and blows his money on expensive dates, only to get hit with bad news one day before a broadcast. When his childhood friend Ben Baker (Galifianakis) bursts into the studio to announce that his father has died and he needs Steve to drive him to the funeral; the two show up so late that they don’t even make it to see the casket lowered into the ground, but despite that, Ben learns that he’s the main benefactor of his father’s will, inheriting a few million dollars and a farm.
If you’re looking at this synopsis and feel like this movie is all over the place, that’s because it is. Basically, Ben doesn’t know how to run the farm, gives it to Steve, sleeps with his own stepmother Angela (Laura Ramsey), and the two make a big mess before everything ends relatively happily. So what did critics have to say about “Are You Here” when it came out?
What did critics think of Are You Here when it came out in 2013?
The answer to that question is that critics had very few nice things to say about “Are You Here” when it hit theaters in 2014. The movie only has an 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and the critical consensus is pretty bleak to match: “Given the amount of talent assembled on both sides of the camera, ‘Are You Here’ falls bewilderingly flat.” So what about individual critics who saw the film? At Entertainment Weekly, Chris Nashawaty was quite blunt, writing, “In ‘Mad Men’ mastermind Matthew Weiner’s big-screen directorial debut, the aggressively unfunny Are You Here, all of the dark humor and delicate character shadings we’re used to seeing on his TV series are conspicuously absent.” (Yes, that’s right; “Mad Men” was already on the air when this came out.) David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter echoed Nashawaty, saying, “This sorry misfire will provide enjoyment only for rival television creatives invidiously rooting for Matthew Weiner to stumble.”Â
Over at The New York Post, Sara Stewart got right to the point: “There’s little to explain the existence of this confoundingly unfunny film.” Claudia Puig actually took a similar approach for USA Today, writing, “It’s so formless, awkward and jarringly directed it’s almost unwatchable.” Perhaps the only borderline-good review for “Are You Here” came from David Edelstein from New York Magazine, who said of the film, “It’s funny, clunky, earnest, and barely credible, but it’s all of a piece” — Ben Kenigsberg at The New York Times also had some measured praise, calling the movie “[an] endearing muddle, which flails in search of an identity.”
What have Owen Wilson and Zach Galifianakis been doing since co-starring in Are You Here?
Thankfully for Owen Wilson, one of his very best projects showed up right after the disastrous “Are You Here” — specifically, a role in Wes Anderson’s 2014 movie “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” Wilson, who worked with Anderson on several previous projects including “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” and “The Darjeeling Limited” (and co-wrote those first two), appears in the Oscar-nominated ensemble film as M. Chuck, the leader of a concierge fraternity. That same year, Wilson worked with a different Anderson — Paul Thomas Anderson, to be precise — on “Inherent Vice,” an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s baffling novel that also stars Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, and Benicio del Toro, among others. Wilson teamed up with the first Anderson years later in 2021 for “The French Dispatch,” and in recent years, he’s also diversified his resumé with modern romantic comedies (like 2022’s “Marry Me”) and even a trip to the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to his role as Mobius M. Mobius in “Loki.”
So what about Zach Galifianakis? At the time, he was probably best known for his work in “The Hangover” trilogy (though he later said he regretted the whole “trilogy” aspect), but he followed “Are You Here” with the 2014 film “Birdman,” which ultimately went on to win Best Picture at the next year’s Academy Awards. Galifianakis went on to lend his voice to “The Lego Batman Movie” as the Joker in 2017, breathe new life into his long-running “talk show” in 2019 with “Between Two Ferns: The Movie,” and show up in recent comedies like “The Beanie Bubble” and “Winner.” As for “Are You Here,” you can stream it on Amazon Prime Video right now if you so please.