me, myself and irene
|
In Me, Myself & Irene - the latest movie from the Farrelly Brothers - you get two Jim Carreys for the price of one. And both of them fall in love with the same girl. So it’s kind of a romantic comedy? Well yes, but
there’s still plenty
of the gross-out humour that we all know and love.
Dick Niro reports.
|
The Farrelly brothers wrote and directed Me, Myself & Irene, so this article should start by talking about all the gross-out things that happen in the film, right? Wrong. Or, to put it another way, there are gross-out things in Me, Myself and Irene, but I’m not going to tell you what they are. Even Renée Zellweger, who stars in the film as Irene, isn’t going to tell you what they are. You’ll have to find out for yourself.
“There’s good taste, there’s bad taste and there’s Farrelly taste,” says Zellweger, a new recruit to the Rhode Island brothers’ universe, who first rose to stardom when she appeared with Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire. “I’ve never done anything like this in my whole life, ever! You can’t imagine some of the stuff these guys come up with. I still can’t believe it. My dad’s not going to believe this. In fact, my dad can’t see this movie!”
What makes this all the more intriguing is the fact that what does make it into Me, Myself & Irene is apparently only the tip of the iceberg. “Of course we offend some people,” says Peter, the older of the two by a year and the one who does most of the talking. “But our general rule is, if we offend more than we don’t offend, we cut it. We’ve discovered in our test screenings that people will not laugh if it’s truly offensive.”
Working on that principle, if Jeff Daniels and the non-flushing toilet in Dumb & Dumber and Ben Stiller and his zip in There’s Something About Mary is OK, where does the line get drawn?
Don’t even ask. And see: here I go talking about gross-out humour, whereas what the Farrellys say they’re trying to make is sweet-natured films about really likeable people. They don’t start out looking for some new outrageous scene that will have everybody talking - which is perhaps just as well, since the Something About Mary zip would be a tough act to follow. No, they start out with characters.
Renée Zellweger (right, and below with Jim Carrey) plays one third of the title role in Me, Myself & Irene. Jim Carrey, in his two warring personalities, plays the other two thirds. |
|
