Review: What You Think of "I Love You, Phillip Morris" May Depend on What You Think of Jim Carrey

It's an admittedly incredible true-life story: an imprisoned con artist named Steven Russell falls in love with an inmate named Phillip Morris. When Morris is released, Russell escapes to be with him — using increasingly ingenious methods to do so.

It's pretty obvious source material for a movie, except for the whole "gay" part — which is why the finished film also made headlines with the almost comically difficult time it's had finding a distributor, with two earlier scheduled limited releases canceled, one in April of this year and one in August. All this despite the fact that it tells that camera-ready story and stars one of the most bankable actors in the world, Jim Carrey.

The film has already been released in Europe and elsewhere in the world (to mostly positive reviews and limited box office success). But this weekend, it's finally now getting that limited release in the U.S. as well.

First things first: some gay folks have found the film offensive, but I didn't, not at all. It sometimes jokes around with gay stereotypes, but in an affectionate, good-natured way (and sometimes in a truly subversive way, like in an early-in-the-movie gay sex scene that was apparently put there to tell the audience: "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!").

In fact, I thought the film's matter-of-fact (or in-your-face, depending on how you look at it) embrace of its gay subject matter to be the best thing about it. It's not really a romance movie — it's more of a comedy-caper film — so the love story is never really taken very seriously. But it's always front-and-center, and for that, the film deserves credit.

But that brings me to the thing I didn't like about the film: a quirky, jokey tone that didn't seem to fit the particular story it was telling.

We're told, via caption, at the beginning of the film that: "This really happened. It really did." Unfortunately, almost every other thing about the movie screams that it didn't happen, at least not the way the film describes it, because it takes such a very unrealistic tone. Did the young Steven Russell really see perfectly-shaped penises in the clouds? Did he and his wife drink glass after glass of wholesome milk, while warbling about making cookies? Once he became a con artist, did Steven really give his family boxes of bundled cash for Christmas — and did his ex-wife (played by quirky comic actress Leslie Mann) respond with the squeaky clean expletive, "Cheese and crackers!"

Clearly, it's all been over-emphasized for comedic effect — and some of it (although definitely not all) is funny. But the unreal, larger-than-life tone seems to clash with the story's main selling point, which is the fact that it all "really" happened. In any event, despite the fact that this movie is probably more sexually explicit than Brokeback Mountain, the jokey tone puts much more of a distance between the audience and its characters and their love for each other.

Did the filmmakers pick this cartoon tone to make a gay love story more palatable to mainstream audiences — a cinematic example of the fat girl who makes fun of herself before anyone else can? Or maybe it was because it gave their famous leading actor, Carrey, a chance to ham it up?

Which brings me to Carrey. This is his movie all the way, and a big part of how much you like it will probably depend on what you think of him. (Full disclosure: I've almost always found him to be hammy, unfunny, and annoying, and I think The Mask is one of the worst movies of all time.) But in any event, Carrey's mannerisms (which are actually somewhat restrained, compared to other films) definitely contribute to the film's cartoon tone. I also thought he looked about 15 years too old for the part.

That said, I give Carrey credit for taking the role and for embracing it in press interviews. I loved Carrey's wonderfully tired eye-rolls on The Late Show with David Letterman over David's discomfort with the gay subject matter, and his world-weary rejoinder to Dave, "So we've learned nothing at all, have we?" In fact, Carrey's fantastic performance on Lettermen was almost enough to get me to rave about his performance here.

Almost, but not quite. Since this is the highest-profile gay movie of the year (and since its failure, if it does fail, will be blamed entirely on the subject matter, not on any artistic failures in the film itself), it's absolutely worth seeing. And I'll concede: the critical reaction has been all over the place (but mostly positive).

But as for me, I put it firmly in the "very nice try" category.