I Love You Phillip Morris
The critics are, for the most part, quietly enamoured of Jim Carrey's flamboyant portrayal of the real-life con man who escaped from jail four times and swindled thousands of dollars, all supposedly in the name of love. Some even suggest that this is the comic's best performance in years, though a minority are concerned that the complex and mercurial nature of the real Steven Russell, a highly intelligent former deputy police officer who has had at least 14 known aliases, is somewhat obscured by Carrey's garish grandstanding.
I Love You Phillip Morris centres on Russell's journey from happily married Virginian family man and regular churchgoer to the notorious, openly gay prisoner currently serving a 144-year life sentence – most of it in solitary confinement – following his audacious multiple escapes. Along the way, he spends time living what he imagines to be the lifestyle of a gay high roller in Miami, embezzles thousands of dollars from a medical company where he fraudulently secures a job as chief financial officer, and enables the release of himself and lover Morris, a shy and inoffensive southerner played by Ewan McGregor who he met behind bars at the Harris County Jail.
"There is something funny and touching about this anarchic, abortive love affair, a chaotically doomed relationship that neither of the principals understand," writes our own Peter Bradshaw. "Steven's bluffs and blags are arguably just a crazily magnified version of the fake-it-till-you-make-it routine that many entirely honest people find themselves needing to use. Poor Steven does see himself as basically one of these decent, honest types. 'Sometimes you've got to shave a little off the puzzle-piece to make it fit,' he muses. The puzzle fits together very entertainingly here."
"It's the comic role of a lifetime for Jim Carrey, who apparently worked for union rates in order to help the film get made," writes Channel 4 Film's Catherine Bray. "[He and McGregor] have a weirdly believable, natural chemistry despite their larger than life roles."
"This witty, engaging film proves love has its own strange logic," writes The Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu, though he adds: "Carrey, in his best performance for a long time, still struggles to rein in his urge to over-gesticulate."
Trevor Johnston of Time Out concurs. "Unfortunately, the bizarre true-life aspect gets swamped by Carrey's ramped-up zeal, delivering a series of showpiece flourishes which dazzle at first but then prove wearing," he complains. "Maybe we don't quite buy Jim and Ewan's hots for one another, maybe the writing makes Carrey's character too much of a psychotic narcissist while rendering McGregor in terms of fluffy-bunny passivity, but either way it just ain't happening."
In real life, Russell's escape plans were both spectacular and disarmingly simple. Twice, he walked out of prison after changing his clothes for those of a civilian, and his final escape was completed after he claimed to have contracted Aids and had himself transferred to a bogus special programme for the terminally ill before reporting his own death to the prison authorities. I Love You Phillip Morris paints him as a lovable, eccentric rogue, and while there are also strong suggestions of the self-deception that underscored Russell's darker side, Carrey and writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa choose to play up the screwball aspect of this intriguing story rather than plumping for what might have been a more ultimately satisfying character-study approach.
This rather safer take is perhaps forgivable given the film's non-commercial subject matter and its consequent difficulties securing distribution in the US, but it does, at times, mean we are given the gurning, maniacal Carrey of old, rather than the more nuanced performance that we all know he's capable of in the wake of films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Truman Show.
Have you seen I Love You Phillip Morris? Was it a splendidly flashy romp through the life of a genial grifter, or a wasted opportunity to get under the skin of a persona infinitely more complex than that depicted on film?
GUARDIAN