POLITE APPLAUSE Comedy. Starring Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd. Directed by David Wain. (R. 98 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)

"Wanderlust" is an assembly line producing laughs. The movie puts together an unusual number of talented and skilled comic actors - not just the leads, Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd, but the co-stars - and places them in situations built to elicit humor. Occasionally the gags feel effortful or flat, but for the most part they're funny, with a surprising percentage in the laugh-out-loud category.

Certainly, no comedy that generates this much laughter deserves anything other than a good review, and that's what this is, a good review, and don't let anybody tell you any different. All the same, "Wanderlust" is slightly disappointing, slightly mechanical, so that when it's over, you get none of that extra something.

What is that extra something? You know: It's the something we all want from comedies, besides laughs. It varies from picture to picture, but when it's not there you feel it. Generally, it has to do with some statement or some connection or some vibration or some human moment that makes you realize that something true has been shown about life as it's lived. Between the zaniness and the craziness, something is being said about the world, and yours suddenly gets bigger.

In fact, "Wanderlust" takes some of its initial inspiration from real-world events. Rudd and Aniston play a New York couple who, at the height of the real estate market, invest all their money in a West Village apartment. But then, on the first Monday after they move in, he loses his job and she doesn't get the windfall she expected. The real estate market drops, and their mortgage is underwater. Basically everything bad that can happen to people in a recession happens to them over the course of 24 hours.

But that's the movie's last feint in the direction of social commentary. By a series of odd circumstances, the struggling couple end up living in a utopian hippie commune, and from then on the movie hangs on their reactions to a series of eccentric characters.

"Wanderlust" was directed and co-written by David Wain, who brings a distinct comic style - the patter is brisk, the pace is fast, and the actors seem to have been coached to understate the laugh lines, so the jokes take viewers by surprise. The actors work this to strong effect, particularly Linda Lavin, in her cameo as a real estate broker, and Michaela Watkins in her brief but memorable turn as an Atlanta housewife, so unhappy in her marriage that she goes through life either muttering to herself or meandering in a dissociative state.

The movie loses some of its freshness about two-thirds in, when the screenwriters realize they need to start pointing the story toward the exit. Aniston drops out of the action, and Rudd becomes the focus, as his character gets increasingly exasperated by the commune. Actually, the audience comes to share his exasperation, which isn't ideal in a comedy. Rudd is engaging, but the movie puts too much emphasis on his skills at comic improvisation. It's the worst stuff in the movie, but somehow it stayed in. Incidentally, Rudd was one of the producers.

Still, it is ungrateful to be churlish about a picture that makes you laugh out loud 20 times. I wasn't counting, but I think I got up to 20. So this is a good comedy, as bad as it can be and still be good, but good.
