Monday, January 09, 2012
GAY CON MAN
Today's gay favorite is a NYTimes Critics' Pick.
I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)
with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor
This is necessarily a Jim Carrey vehicle. It is unlikely anyone else could credibly play this true but incredible character, a brilliantly successful sociopath and serial liar.
McGregor's mild, blond and blue eyed innocent Phillip Morris is also a necessary counterweight to Carrey's carefully controlled zaniness.
That, then, is a setup for a story of a talented grifter who happens to be gay and a romance that, while improbable, seems totally right and romantic.
I don't want to focus on the gay aspect of the film as it is so carefully done that the transgressive parts of it fold into the whole. Although it seems to me they are kind of shoving it down the straight folks' throat, so to speak, when Carey and a new neighbor have at it in a beautifully photographed, high art porn quality fucking sequence.
I am a mixed Carrey fan. I have loved and hated his work. Now, he has calmed down and there is no overplaying the scene. He has his wrinkles and is still a total fox physically. He could and does stand up against the hottest. His first boyfriend is magnificent and he is a good match.
There is no stereotyping here. There is no gay baiting at all. I bet that it is totally clean with GLADD and the like, the PETAs of the gay rights movement.
And so on.
To be honest, there is no electricity between Carrey and McGregor at all. There is affection. There is a bit of "talk", men love "talk" but their heterosexuality is safe with their fans. There is nothing dangerous going on. There is a lot more passion with the new neighbor at the beginning of the film.
Did I mention that the film is suspenseful, funny, loving, sentimental and madly surprising as Carrey's capers continue to the end. Thrilling too.
And, they say over and over, it is all true. True true true.
It is a bit like the film Catch Me If You Can but way funnier and antic. And, well, gay!
I also like that they show his exwife as a supportive and involved adult who gets him and helps him when she can.
Everyone loves him.
I would gladly see this again making it a 4 out of Netflix5.
