Reviewed by Eric Kohn
(from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival)

Directed/Written by: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Starring: Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor

Fascinatingly muddled, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's I Love You Phillip Morris falls into the trappings of a crude parody. The "Bad Santa" scribes make their directorial debut with the same mixture of lewd charm and underlying character complexity of that subversive holiday hit, but their intentions lie all across the map. Based on a true story - but clearly the stuff embellishment was made for - Phillip Morris tracks the efforts of a con artist named Steven Jay Russell (Jim Carrey), whose antics land him in jail, where he falls in love with his cell mate, Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor).

Throughout the movie, Steven continually slips away from prison to reunite with his partner, pulling a number of amusing tricks that suggest Chaplin by way of James Bond. But Carrey's performance runs from wild slapstick to puppy-eyed sentimentalism, often making it tough to discern the tone of any given scene. However, because of this perpetual inconsistency, Philip Morris remains a unique oddity: fascinating to watch and hard to forget, but not so great in retrospect.

Beautifully shot by Xavier Pérez Grobet, the movie opens with an American Beauty tactic, tracking Steven's unhappy suburban marriage while he narrates his woes on the soundtrack. "Did I mention I'm gay?" he asks as a fleeting glimpse of his clandestine sex life flashes on the screen. Steven decides to come out one day after a car accident. "I'm a fag!" he shouts from the stretcher. In interviews, the directors have downplayed the character's homosexuality as a key element of the story, but they sure take the opportunity to inject it with a sensationalistic kick.

As Phillip, McGregor does a competent job of playing the downbeat half of the relationship, but he's not given much to do besides look pissed. Steven's conning habits continually ruin their odds of maintaining a life together outside prison grounds, but we never really learn why he doesn't just give it a rest. The script often gets silly when it would do better to elaborate on the scenario. It's hard to view Phillip's behavior as particularly outlandish when the entire world seems equally nuts. When a prison mate casually offers to fellate Phillip after he gives the newbie a tour, and Phillip eagerly accepts, the abrupt offer appears to satirize notions of desperate prison behavior; however, it ruptures the illusion of Phillip's sexuality as a salient aspect of his personality by turning it into a punchline.

Curious enough, considering the directors' resumes, the strongest aspects of Phillip Morris lie not with its comedic aspirations, but with the con. Steven's clever schemes never really get old, especially because every moment relies on his unreliable narration, which leads to a thrill of The Usual Suspects variety where we don't know what to believe. Imagine Catch Me If You Can with scenes from Dumb & Dumber arbitrarily dropped into the picture, and you'll get an idea of the disjointed experience. Never dull, Phillip Morris simply fails to find a single groove until the very end, when the finale takes a page from The Sting before doubling back on itself. At any given moment, the engagement factor lies with viewers' curiosity about which form the movie will take next. -MPM

Photo courtesy of EuropaCorp Distribution