A friend of mine had been abroad in a country where there "I Love You Phillip Morris" has been in theaters for a while now. This friend picked up a copy of the movie on DVD while there. I can't comment on the legality of this transaction, however it is packaged very eloquently, and the video and sound were top notch. If this isn't an official DVD release it would have definitely fooled me.
Seeing as how the Americans won't have a change to see this for a couple of months, I won't spoil the movie for anyone. Apparently this movie has been "in the can" (watch the movie and you will find how great that pun is) for almost 2 years now. My understanding is that it is having trouble finding an American distributor. I can see why.
I Love You Phillip Morris, directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, is the story of a gay con man who falls in love with his cell mate while in prison. Once out of prison they find that old habits are hard to break and that lies beget lies beget lies. The gay prisoners are played by Jim Carrey and Ewen McGregor. The movie also contains some wonderful supporting performances that really flush out and support the story. Lesslie Mann as Carrey's ultra christian ex-wife is especially good.
The reason that this movie might struggle to find an American distributor is that theaters will be afraid that the movie will alienate too many people. Much of the typical movie going sections of the US (the South, I'm talking to you) still won't go see a movie about gay people (although TV seems to have a gay character on nearly every show now a days). And there are a few moments of some pretty explicit gay interactions. So then you turn to the gay crowd. This film doesn't always portray the gay community in the best light. There are some very blunt plot twists involving AIDS that I can see scaring off what would be a strong demographic. So who is left? Jim Carrey fans? His performance is comedic, but this is no Fire Marshall Bill. He is a sad clown in this movie and I have seen fans of his stay away from movies where he does anything higher brow than Ace Ventrua.
One of my common complaints about movies are that they can be uneven. Usually this means that a director had a solid vision. He makes his movie to that vision. Then the studios see it, and realize they can't sell it like that so they change it. This happens a lot with movies intended to be rated "R", then the studio makes them more accessable to a wider crowd and it gets a "PG-13" rating (Ironman 2 anyone). Usually the directors vision is also gone with the old rating. I have to say, to its credit, this isn't the case with I Love You Phillip Morris. This movie reminded me a lot of a film from last year. The Informant! with Matt Damon. Both in tone and in theme. The Informant! perhaps pulled it off a little better, but I would say that I Love You Phillip Morris kept me guessing the entire time. I never knew where the film was going and that is a good thing. It pulled the rug out from under me about 9 times. Good performance, well directed, the cinematography was kind of hit and miss with me along with the set design and art direction. I couldn't tell what they were going for (a problem I never had with The Informant!). Overall this was an interesting, surprisingly touching movie. Please FBI, don't arrest me. I give it a 3.5/5 stars. For more check out the link below for the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoFANivV44g
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