Posted: 06/21/2000

Me, Myself & Irene

(2000)

by Robin Effron

The Farrelly Brothers return to Jim Carrey in a story tailor-made for this schizoprenic comedian.

The trailer for Me, Myself, and Irene boasts that this new film arrives on your screen via the Farelly brothers of There’s Something About Mary and Jim Carrey of Man On The Moon and The Truman Show. They conveniently forget to mention other stellar Farelly/Carrey ventures like Dumb and Dumber. To be fair, this latest summer flick is not nearly as banal and mind-numbing as Dumb and Dumber. Make no mistake though, I know something about Mary, and this ain’t no Mary.

Me, Myself, and Irene is the story of Charlie Baileygates, a hapless and emasculated Rhode Island state trooper. Charlie, we learn, has been suppressing his anger ever since his wife left him and their three children (who, as you will see, are clearly the product of her extracurricular activities. Riding along the empty and innocuous Rhode Island highways, Charlie looks more like a Canadian Mounty in his state trooper uniform then a tough highway patrolman. Charlie is sweet and passive, a good neighbor, a loving father, and a total pushover. He meets with little respect from the townspeople who openly humiliate him when he takes his job seriously.

Despite his cheerful nature, Charlie begins to act out of character with episodes that range from the violent to the absurd. The state’s shrinks diagnose him with multiple personality disorder, and we are informed that it isn’t really Charlie acting out of character, it is his alternate personality, Hank. Hank predictably expresses the character traits that Charlie lack, he is nasty, aggressive, controlling, and vindictive.

Naturally, his superiors find this alarming and take him off active duty. A young woman, Irene (Renée Zellweger) has been stopped on a traffic violation back to New York where she is being investigated for bigger and better crimes, and Charlie is assigned to accompany her back to the Empire state. These offenses, as it turns out, involve her unwitting participation with her mobster boyfriend. This sets up the rest of the movie in which Charlie (and Hank) and Irene are on the lam from her boyfriend and henchmen and from law enforcement.

The mental health community must be up in arms about this movie. The script only roughly outlines the components of this illness, and generally mocks it. I suppose some people might actually believe that this Charlie guy has multiple personality disorder, but then again, these are the same people who think that Busta Rhymes and Leann Rimes are twins. The rest of us will just think that Jim Carrey is a really funny guy, and forget the premise of his capers. This is where the Farelly Brothers did make an intelligent decision. Insofar as the plot hinges on Carrey and Zellweger escaping the bad guys and not on the fact of Charlie’s split personality, Charlie’s predicament can be transparently preposterous without interfering too much with our enjoyment of the story.

The movie and the ideas behind it are generally groundless, but Jim Carrey provides a fantastically funny anchor. His physical comedy is pristine, and the scenes in which Charlie and Hank are fighting for control of Charlie’s body provide Carrey with some of the best opportunities yet for his physical antics. His plastic face possesses exactly the capability to create two characters that can be called forth at the drop of a hat. But then again, Jim Carrey is a very funny man and a talented actor. We already know that, so we are left to wonder why it was necessary to build such a shoddy film around him. The plot has gaping holes that could have been easily filled. Zellweger is sweet, but her character doesn’t do a whole lot besides react to Jim Carrey. Even the usual bag of animal tricks that the Farelly brothers concoct were half-hearted. It’s not that I expect prize winning filmmaking. It’s fine to understand and enjoy films of this genre. However, more attention to detail would have resulted in a funnier and more entertaining package.

Me, Myself, and Irene is primarily a vehicle for Jim Carrey. Everything else - story, character, and even some of the gags take a back seat to his (admittedly hysterical) antics. The movie would have been better off simply titled “Me, Myself, and Jim Carrey.”

Robin Effron is a writer living in Manhattan, where she occassionally shows up at Columbia University as a student of philosophy and political science.

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