Gemma La Mana | Universal Pictures

Paul Rudd stars as George and Jennifer Aniston stars as Linda in Universal Pictures’ “Wanderlust.”

Everyone can agree that Hollywood is full of a bunch of hacks. If a formula works, then generations of screenwriters will churn out scripts following that formula until the bitter end. So an important part of any movie-watching experience is the process of sorting the film into a category.

At first glance, “Wanderlust” seems to be trying to emulate the likes of “Bridesmaids,” taking a basic romantic-comedy premise and painting it in broad comedic strokes so as to appeal equally to a male audience. So, date movie, right? Maybe. But things get weird quickly.

“Wanderlust” follows George (Paul Rudd) and Linda (Jennifer Aniston), a married couple from Manhattan who has just moved to a new micro-loft when George loses his job. Unemployed, homeless and with no prospects, they drive to Atlanta to move in with George’s obnoxious brother. They decide to stop on the way there, and they end up accidentally spending the night at a commune.

Predictably, the couple has a good time smoking pot, playing weird musical instruments, and hanging out with the hippies. They fail at staying with George’s brother and decide to stay at the commune—at least for two weeks, to figure out if they like it or not. And that’s when they figure out just how insane their new housemates are.

Every time George and Linda (and the audience) think they’ve got this whole commune thing figured out, a new facet of weirdness shows up. There are no doors. People come and try to have a conversation with you while you’re on the toilet. No one owns anything privately, so one of the hippies takes George’s car and drives it into a lake. A good bit of the movie consists of facepalming on George’s behalf.

Of course, then there are the moments where cringe comedy turns into just cringing. “Wanderlust” contains male nudists, and it’s really not shy about showing penises. Seriously, the first shot of George and Linda driving into the commune involves a naked guy with his penis hanging out. And later, you get a whole horde of naked guys, some of them quite old, with their penises bopping up and down as they run.

If you’re uncomfortable with me using the word “penis” this many times, just think how much more uncomfortable it is to actually see it.

It seems like director David Wain’s general goal was to present the audience with scene after scene of the weird, the trippy and the downright disgusting, and hope that the audience is so shocked that it has no choice but to laugh. At one point, George is trying to psych himself up for some free love and spends about five minutes looking in the mirror and giving himself a monologue about what he’s going to do to the lovely Eva. It’s crude, repetitive, dripping with profanity and kind of makes him sound like he has Tourette’s. And I was laughing, even while thinking to myself, “Please, God, make it stop.” To a lesser extent, that’s how I felt about most of the movie.

I will give “Wanderlust” due credit: It’s different from pretty much any other movie out there right now. In spite of the nominal romantic storyline of George and Linda getting closer as a couple and testing the limits of their marriage, it’s not a date movie. It’s not slapstick-y enough to be in the same category as, say, “American Pie” or “Superbad.” It’s unique. But if “unique” translates to “making the audience really uncomfortable,” I think I’ll take my chances with the standard formulaic Hollywood fare.