Friday, February 24, 2012

I Love You Phillip Morris 2009

I Love You Phillip Morris 2009

Well this week I got a hype-free foreign gem in Castaway on the Moon (2009) that was a box office failure, so I decided to sit down and watch a very hyped domestic box office failure.  I guess I was still in the mood for some odd ball romantic comedy because I popped in a copy of I Love You Phillip Morris.  This flick has a great underground following despite its limited release and lambasting by some critics.  The touchy subject matter presented humorously in the film polarized some viewers, but overall it received positive reviews from critics and came with a few personal recommendations from friends.  For those not familiar with some of the controversy about I Love You Phillip Morris, it is a story based on a real life homosexual con-artist and prison escape artist Steven Russell.  Russell, played by Jim Carey, during a stint in jail falls in love with a fellow inmate Phillip Morris, played by Ewan McGregor.  The real controversy is that the film couldn't find a domestic distributor at first due to its frequent scenes of gay sex and other sexual content.  Eventually the film was re-edited to reduce the sexual content and the film got a limited U.S. release.  During its limited release it had equally limited success, but was more successful during foreign releases and among critics.  Personally I wasn't worried about homosexual content, but fair warning to the more puritanical viewers.

So I think that will segue really poorly into some further plot discussion.  The plot is based on the very interesting life of Russell and is adapted from a book that regales the tales of Russell's life and multiple prison escapes.  The film was directed and written by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra, writers on movies like Bad News Bears and Bad Santa or for their writing on the cartoon The Angry BeaversPhillip Morris was the pair's directorial debut and I think the screen play was really good, but I felt that the pacing was off in the film with long dry stretches, painfully obvious attempts at heart string tugs, and then fast paced slapstick comedy.  I applaud the effort of turning taboo subjects like HIV and homosexual prison relationships into comic moments, but some of it just didn't really work for me.  Oddly the implausibility of it all was one thing that kept me from really enjoying it.  I know that sounds contradictory since Russell really did break out of jail multiple times in humorous ways (it is very worth reading more about this colorful character).

Jim Carrey plays Russell in the film and does an outstanding job.  He really is at his best playing extremely weird roles and the script seems perfect for his great facial expressions, expressive clown body language and odd stares.  On the other hand his very clownishness brings the illusion of the film crashing back down.  Every of person in the film play the straight man to his outlandish clowning.  While this creates laughs it also makes the few serious scenes more awkward than moving.  Their are odd and uncomfortable scenes with Carrey awkwardly twisting his face trying just a bit to hard to create awkward laughs.  This seems more like a directing and pacing issue than an issue with Carrey.  Ewan McGregor as Phillip Morris plays his role way too straight... well more gay than straight... hmmm.... OK make that McGregor plays his role very seriously.  He does an outstanding job playing a very soft spoke and kindhearted character who falls for the suave, lying scoundrel Russell. This leaves his character as too real to be in the same film as Carrey's version of Russell.  On a final note about the acting, Leslie Mann does a great job playing the good, religious wife of Russell.  Her scenes throughout the film elicited some serious chuckles.

Overall I feel like this was a good movie that just fell short of its own hype.  It was a really fun, funny, and entertaining flick, but I can understand why it had trouble finding its audience.  It deals with some pretty heavy issues in funny but frequently in demeaning ways.  For those black comedy fans open minded enough to watch a film with a lot of Jim-on-Ewan kissing it should offer some good laughs and the last half hour has some great lines, but I wouldn't go so far as to recommend this to my catholic grandmother.  I would recommend this film to fans of black comedy and those looking for a more comedic breach into issues of homosexuality than Brokeback Mountain (2005).

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