In the film, Ed Helms is Eddie Krumble – an oddball, socially awkward adult who earns his keep by appearing as a clapper in various infomercials shot in Hollywood. In these infomercials, he wears moustaches, “ordinary people” costumes, asks rehearsed questions, and exhibits exaggerated facial reactions to approximate a sense of awe and amazement to products that are ultimately just that – a giant, contrived fraud.
Hardly smiling outside of the studios, a wee bit eccentric, with a hint of an endearing persona nursing a potentially painful past and whose only friend is a dumb black guy named Chris (Tracy Morgan), Eddie Krumble gets attracted to an equally eccentric and lonely gas attendant named Judy (Amanda Seyfriend) who dreams of hieing off to Mexico with her one-horned goat. At this point, it is increasingly becoming clear the film is fast traversing “indie” territory, with screwball characters who dream unusual dreams and wear bad clothes.
This vibe continues until a late night TV show host discovers a series of Eddie Krumble’s previous appearances as a clapper and makes him a national laughingstock. Unaware of his identity, the show host launches a massive campaign to find Eddie and discover his identity.
A bit of a recluse and with a lot of anxious feelings, Eddie resists getting dragged into the TV show’s plot. Soon, he is chased by the TV show’s producers leading to him becoming even more insufferable as an individual and the crumbling of his blossoming relationship with Judy.
Eddie finds that resisting the forces of media is futile. So in an attempt to reconcile with Judy, he agrees to be on TV under the premise that he does so only to find the now missing Judy, who was fired from her job at the gas station and who has no idea what is going on because it turns out she does not watch TV.
Because the weird, bumbling, and neurotic Eddie is a hit to the American audiences, he is booked to appear in several more guestings in the show, this time with pay. Along the way, he bastardizes every little connection he has had with Judy by turning all of them into comedic material for the show. When Judy chances upon one of those episodes, she gets thrown off.
For a movie where the characters do nothing but talk, talk, and then talk some more, it’s surprising how very little is known about them. Unfortunately, the characters suffer from hollow character development, almost two-dimensional even, and the succeeding belated revelations about them yield nothing more than project a lazy kind of screenplay where the viewers are supposed to believe everything they are told.
It turns out, for example, that Eddie is a widower from New York whose wife passed away after getting sick. His being a clapper in Hollywood is just a means for him to move on from such a tragedy.
None of this, however, explains why despite working in the media and going to great lengths to get key roles in infomercials, Eddie is very reluctant to appear on mainstream TV. As for Judy, well, she has no backstory whatsoever.
By the end of the film, a huge hysteria breaks out at the shooting of the TV show which ultimately becomes the key for Eddie and Judy to reunite. They end up getting married with goats in tow.
The ending brings to mind the infomercials Eddie appears in – contrived and beyond believable.