ME, MYSELF AND IRENE

US, 2000, 116 minutes, Colour.
Jim Carrey, Renée Zellweger, Chris Cooper, Robert Forster, Richard Jenkins, Anthony Anderson.
Directed by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly.

Audiences in the US have already paid over 90 million dollars to see this comedy. On the other hand, some associations concerned with schizophrenia have lobbied reviewers to condemn it. Because it features Jim Carrey in one of his best performances (combining mugging slapstick and his more serious acting skills, it will draw the crowds everywhere).

Choosing the Film of the Week is not necessarily to recommend it. Rather, as with this film, it gives the opportunity for thinking about some of the difficulties that contemporary films raise.

It should be said first that this is a film written and directed by the Farrelly Brothers. They are definitely of the broad humour school that anyone with fastidious taste should avoid whether the film is good or not. They are the principal exponents of the comedy of human beings being physical creatures and remind us of it with jokes (and often crass situations) about our most rudimentary, and sometimes rude, bodily functions. Their best known films (and box-office sucesses) are Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey and There's Something about Mary. This film is certainly no exception.

This is much more a matter of taste rather than morals. And one of the dangers in assessing the whole film is to be so focused on some crass sequence that we have found offensive that we miss the overall sense of the film.

Where Me, Myself and Irene has provoked controversy is in the area of mental illness. It raises the legitimacy of a subject like schizophrenia for humour. Theoretically, any human experience can be the subject of humour, otherwise we are putting it on some kind of unreal plane above reality. The question is always in the 'how' the humour is presented.

The Farrelly Brothers keep their audience on edge. The film opens with a situation that defies credibility: Jim Carrey's ultra-nice Charlie, a Rhode Island policeman is challenged by an African- American vertically-challenged Mensa scholar and Charlie loses his wife but gains three very large black sons. The audience is sympathetic to issues that are called 'politically correct' but then are moved to laugh at the absurdities to which this could be taken.

And so it goes throughout the film, especially when Charlie is taken over by a personality from within, Hank, his shadow side who is full of rage and has been suppressed over the years. Carrey is very good at moving from Hank to Charlie and back again. And the issue of suppressed anger causing emotional
splits is a very valid one. Farcical comedy is one way of bringing this to the attention of the very wide popular audience.

The film is also a chase comedy with crooked police pursuing Charlie and the witness he is protecting (another genial performance from Renee Zellwegger).

The result is a strange, even unsettling, experience where one is 'grossed out' by some of the physicality, laughing at some funny sequences and still wondering what we really think about the deeper mental illness problems. It is one of those,
'despite myself, I enjoyed a lot of it' films.

1. The impact of the film in its time? As a Jim Carrey comedy? As a police and crime story? As farce? Slapstick, comedy?

2. The Farrelly brothers and their films, taking on offbeat themes, running the risk of offence? Schizophrenia, the acceptance, the interpretation, the manifestations, the different personalities, behaviour and effects? The reasons for Charlie’s schizophrenia? A nice man, suppressed anger? Interpreting everything well and covering over unpleasantness? Bursting out, his shadow, demanding, exploitative? The scenes of the two fighting each other and Jim Carrey’s comic style?

3. The title, Charlie and Hank, the response to Irene?

4. The narrative, the narrator and his tone, giving the facts, funny and ironic? Touch of the deadpan?

5. Jim Carrey’s Charlie? Providence, Rhode Island? Growing up, his reputation, the wedding, his home, the dwarf and his attack, again are Farrelly theme with the character of the dwarf? His skill and Mensa, the wife? Her pregnancy, the triplets, their being black, people’s reaction, Charlie’s reaction? Her leaving with the dwarf? Charlie as the dad, the three boys, the socials and neighbours as they grew up, the picnics, school, watching the television in the different styles, the changing, Charlie accepting them? Joining in with them?

6. The three boys, as kids, clever, Mensa, their size, arguments, coarse language, discussions? Support of Charley? Affection for him? With the police, following Charlie, the helicopter, their help? Comic characters?

7. The colonel and the local police, Charlie and his work, their concern about his outburst, Charlie and his meekness when others broke the law, the man parked for three days, the sportsmen and the confrontation, the contrast when Hank went into action? Charlie given the job of escorting Irene, the search for him and the crooks?

8. Irene, her background, her story and Hank summarising it, her denial, yet later admitting it? Coming to New York, knowing nothing about greenkeeping, her contract, her liaison with the criminal, thinking she had the information? Her wanting to hide, the trip with Charlie, Hank bursting out, the contrast between the nice and the lewd, the sexual night? The details of the trip, the comedy with the shooting of the cow so many times – and the final credit showing it survived?

9. Hank, his character, behaviour, crass, lewd, ugly? A Jim Carrey speciality? Charlie trying to deal with Hank, and suffering the physical injuries because of Hank?

10. The encounter with Whitey, the Farrelly theme of albinos and their being insulted by crass types, Whitey his personality, serving the meal, Irene’s apology, his decision to travel with the two of them, supplying the finance, his story about the murder of his family and deceiving Charlie, his collaboration in the fight with the crooks, sympathetic character?

11. The police, the agents, in cahoots with the criminal, their pursuit of Irene, the shooting at the police station? The chase, the confrontation – and the slapstick comedy as well as the shootings?

12. Charlie and his trying to save Irene, on the bridge, the water? The dangers and yet the slapstick comedy? The boys and the helicopter rescue?

13. Irene saying farewell, being held up on the highway – and Charlie proposing?

14. How well did the film blend its comic ingredients, serious sub-plot, comic exploration of mental illness?