December 12, 2010

"I Love You Phillip Morris" (2009/2010)

Dwight Dekeyser rating: BBC


Dear Reader:

Despite the title, this movie is not about a smoker’s gratitude for the Marlboro Man, although he would have fit right into the picture without any trouble, if it were.  As you may be aware, the cowboy (or reasonable facsimile there of) is a popular stereotype in gay culture.  Appearing to be a recognizable brand or "type" is a quick way of getting recognition in otherwise dim, crowded, and anonymous establishments.   And speaking of branding (hold your irons), the title just might have been the greatest feat of product placement since Lloyd's of London (1936), but I digress before I begin.

I Love You Phillip Morris is a funny picture and by “funny” I not only mean humorous, but something unsettling.  It’s hard not to laugh at Jim Carrey, he is so good at what he does.  (Hope you like him.  There is a lot of him in this movie.)  Although, I have to admit that at some point I felt uncomfortable with the whole premise of the picture being a comedy.  The movie is based on the life of one the great con artists/escape artists/impostors/embezzlers in recent memory, Steven Jay Russell.  His nicknames were “Houdini” and “King Con.”  Russell, a handsome and charming homosexual, was able to convince people that among other things, he was an attorney, a judge, a corporate executive, a physician, etc. by actually practicing these professions without any education or training.  It is said he has an I.Q. of 163.  He fell in love with Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor) in the Harris County Jail, and the two maintained a torrid relationship that endured a prison to palace to prison “destiny.”  This is a remarkable story by any measure.

The IMDb website describes this feature as a “Comedy / Romance / Drama.”  If I were to define the movie, I would call it a romantic gay screwball-comedy biography.  Did I say, “biography?”  Yes, and this is what bothers me.  It is almost as if the filmmaker were saying, “their lives are our joke.”  Have you ever heard of a funny biography?  Funny Girl (1962), maybe, but that was because Fanny Brice was a comedienne.  IMDb describes Funny Girl as a “Biography / Comedy / Drama.”  Brice and her husband Nick Arnstein were two real people in the movie.  In I Love You Phillip Morris, Carrey portrays Russell as a cartoon character, someone we can dismiss as unreal, ridiculous, and incredible.  Perhaps this is why the promoters of the film kept telling us the movie is, “a story so incredible, it could only be true,” and “based on a story so unbelievable, it has to be true.”

I think this could have been a great romantic thriller, had the writers not decided that “improbable” meant hilarious.  Carrey, err, Russell “becomes gay” after a near fatal car accident.  (Do you think it was the head injury?)  The intrigue, deception, and scheming on the part of Russell could have been a great criminal suspense drama combined with a love story.  Perhaps, comedy was the only way to sell this unique saga to the American public, by making the gay couple laughable.  Much of the poignancy of the relationship was lost when they were made figures of fun.  I personally could not overlook that fact that this was a true love story between two real people whose lives were not a comedy.  In many ways the film became the story of “what will those crazy gays do next?”

In fairness to the movie, not all was comic.  McGregor was fabulous as Phillip Morris.   There has not been such a convincing portrait of a southern belle from a British actor since Vivien Leigh in A Street Car Named Desire (1951), speaking of improbable queer stories.  His sensitive and sincere portrayal of Morris was the counterpoint needed to offset Carrey’s buffoonery.  Carrey was very good, but then he has portrayed flamboyant homosexuals in the past.  He was truly great in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000). 

Structurally, the movie came apart towards the end.  The narrative had to describe to the audience in a flashback what they had just seen in real time to explain a crucial plot twist.  It was almost as if there were too much story to cover and too little time to tell it adequately.  One got the impression that the movie had been edited by too many committees and its cohesion suffered.  The “moral of the story” was long overdue and then didactically enunciated before the credits started rolling, that living one’s life as a lie is destructive to one’s identity (as in “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”).  Despite all the stereotypes and the comic portrayals, Phillip Morris was a landmark of sorts for gay people, the lovers didn’t die in the end -- just a 144-year sentence.


From the vault:  How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), directed by Ron Howard, starring Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, and Jeffrey Tambor.  (Has anyone ever figured out what “Fah who for-aze!  Dah who dor-aze!” means?)  No Boris Karloff narration, but Carrey is scary enough as the over-the-top Grinch.  ‘Tis the season, after all.

Best of luck in your movie selection.  Your faithful friend,


Dwight Dekeyser

© 2010 Dwight Dekeyser, Esq.  All rights reserved.



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