Jim Carrey is an unusual actor. A good one for sure, but an odd one as well. Despite taking on serious roles and delivering excellent performances, it might be impossible to remove his former comic personas from our collective psyche. The Jerry Lewis of his generation, Carrey seems always in search of legitimacy. One wonders whether he will end up one day with a THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED locked up in a vault somewhere.
It is hard to believe that a star as big as Carrey can somehow be limited by baggage associated directly with his success. But he does have baggage. This is why a film like I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is so important to his future. Because only Carrey could convincingly play Steven Russell, the film’s troubled lovesick protagonist. By utilizing his comic sensibilities and timing, Carrey crafts a character both outlandish and indescribably real. MORRIS is a movie that but for Carrey’s work would have seemed ridiculous and lacking in credibility.
In MORRIS, Carrey takes on the role of Steven Russell, a man in perpetual identity crisis. We learn early on that he was adopted and this plagues him his whole life. And even though he marries and has a daughter, he’s gay, a fact that leads him eventually to Phillip Morris. His path to true love is fraught with danger, all of it self-imposed. Steven is brilliant but instead of putting his intelligence into legal endeavors, he becomes a master con man. But success in crime is almost always short-lived.
In prison, Steven meets the love of his life, the naive Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). And it seems from the point of love at first sight Steven’s mission is to make Morris happy.
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is a different sort of love story. Like THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT it deals with a homosexual lifestyle but doesn’t try to beat you over the head with social commentary. Based on the true story of Steven Russell, who is even today cooling his heels in a Texas prison, the events that take place are the kind that couldn’t really be invented, rather, they could only have happened in real life. The movie is taken from the book of the same name written by Houston Chronicle crime reporter Steve McVicker. And after seeing MORRIS, you won’t be surprised that the movie is written and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the team responsible for the BAD SANTA script. All that fine writing gives Jim Carrey a role that is challenging but also provides his funny side with running room. Following the original story does provide the movie with one too many twists and turns, but it is never uninteresting or boring and like Russell himself, the narrative is constantly reinventing itself.
I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS is a hugely entertaining and funny film with great heart. And another opportunity for Jim Carrey to use his baggage to show us he’s an actor first and a funny man thereafter.
