‘We’re the Millers’ was the sleeper hit that could’ve been even better

Welcome to Fix It, our weekly series examining projects we love — save for one tiny change we wish we could make.

We’re the Millers is a great movie with just one scene to “.”

Director Rawson M. Thurber (aka the dude who brought you Dodgeball) delivered a timeless monument to joke writing excellence with his 2013 road trip comedy starring Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, and Will Poulter. The hilarious, yet oft-maligned flick — which has a , but an — tells the story of a small-time drug dealer (Sudeikis) teaming up with a stripper (Aniston), a misfit teen (Roberts), and a dweeb (Poulter) to smuggle marijuana from Mexico into the great state of Colorado. (, 2013.)

By posing as a family of tourists, the four unlikely conspirators plan to trick border agents into letting them through customs riding an RV filled headlights-to-tailpipes with highly potent weed.

We’re the Millers is a great movie with just one scene to “ragret.”

It’s a simple premise executed remarkably well. Nearly 8 years later, We’re the Millers’ quick-witted dialogue and stellar casting continues to make it a worthwhile watch, immortalized on social media through its most quotable lines and meme-able moments. “Wait, you guys are getting paid?” is, of course, an all-time great.

Still, there’s one scene, arguably one of the film’s most iconic, that hurts its otherwise great composition. Yep, I’m talking about Jennifer Aniston’s nearly two-minute strip performance to Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion.” It’s a notorious sequence that was almost universally knocked by critics when We’re the Millers came out — but not for the reasons it should have been. 

I’ll admit, the scene (which involves Aniston’s character Rose doing an elaborate strip tease as a distraction for an escape plan) is objectively ridiculous. 

It’s a classic example of a joke gone wrong — an instance where the “straight man” delivered and the comedian didn’t.

Set in a remote warehouse, the exquisitely choreographed number sees Rose sexily scale an industrial ladder, douse herself with water in a safety shower, and inexplicably start a small fireworks display with the push of a button — all while dancing in her underwear. Rose’s fake family and the gangsters holding them hostage look on in awe at the smoking hot strip tease, until Rose blasts the main bad guy with some steam and the group makes a hasty getaway. 

In 2013, plenty of jerks used the sexy spectacle as an excuse to shame Aniston about everything from her feminist values to her weight. The sequence, heavily featured in the trailer, was largely regarded as a tasteless ploy to sell tickets. A critic for Time Out described Aniston’s performance as “desperate-looking,” and another for the New York Times mused that it was taken on by the actor solely to “prove to the world that she has an amazing body.” That sort of language, placing the failed joke squarely on Aniston’s shoulders and not on the rest of the creative team behind We’re the Millers, was a trend throughout reviews that was at best misguided and at worst akin to slut-shaming. 

But the issue with this sequence, at least as I see it, has very little do with Aniston. Instead, it’s a classic example of a situational joke gone wrong — a time when the “straight man” (in this case, Aniston) delivered and the comedian opposite her (in this case, the gobsmacked onlookers played by Sudeikis, Roberts, and Poulter) did not.

During the scene, Aniston plays the strip tease with total sincerity. There’s no slapstick comedy or snarky remarks. It’s just hot, top to (extremely toned) bottom. But with a staggering duration of almost two minutes — a hell of a long time for a sub-two hour movie — We’re the Millers doesn’t take enough comedic swings to make the most of the overtly funny situation. It’s a shortcoming that tanks the scene and drags down the second half of the film.

These jokes are, in a word, fine. But they don’t measure up.

Just two jokes, count ’em two, occur during the scene: (1) At the start of the strip tease, Sudeikis’ character David does a straight-to-camera The Office-style eyebrow raise, as if to say “Can you believe this?” and (2) At the end of the strip tease, Poulter’s character Kenny gets a boner and David says, “Have some respect. That’s your mother!” 

These jokes are, in a word, fine. But for a script that boasts Poulter cupping a pair of swollen testicles and crying “A SPIDER BIT ME ON MY BALLS!”, they don’t measure up. 

See, Aniston’s dance, which took two months of training and required a stunt double, is so well done that it heightens the comedic tension to a point where a slam-dunk joke is required — or else, the scene comes out like it did: an awkwardly titillating outlier in an otherwise not sexy movie. It’s so sexy you need something to cut that tension, and a couple of half-baked jokes just don’t do it.

What’s worse, the energy of both of David’s lines have a distinct “What’re we even doing here?” tone. It’s clear these were intended to be moments of self-aware comedy, underscoring the rest of the R-rated film’s raunchy vibe. But, as the scene turned out, they’re missed opportunities, dragging down the energy of Aniston’s incredible performance with a sense of bizarre disinterest.

In effect, these half-hearted one-liners reverse the roles that would have made this scene work. It forced Aniston’s not at all funny routine to be the punchline when it should have been the setup, and made Sudeikis’ lines accessories to that joke’s bad execution. Aniston’s performance gets labeled unnecessarily suggestive and Sudeikis’ wry character, who kills in almost every other scene of the movie, appears inconsistent if not a bit lazy.

Whether punching up these jokes would have calmed We’re the Millers‘ most aggressive critics, I can’t say. Still, I’d like to think fixing this scene would have helped the rest of this phenomenal movie shine as brightly as it ought to — or at least saved Aniston some undeserved hate. 

All I’m saying? Make those jokes as tight as Jen’s abs and you’ve got a winner, baby. 

We’re the Millers is now available to rent/buy on Prime Video, iTunes, Google Play, and YouTube.