Disaster on All Accounts: Me, Myself & Irene.

Movie Review: Me, Myself & Irene

Director: The Farrelly Brothers (Bobby and Peter)

Reviewed: 1 December 2013

jamesintexas rating--1/2 *

Jim Carrey reunited with his Dumb and Dumber directors should have been comedy gold. Instead, this sloppy comedy Me, Myself & Irene wastes an intriguing and promising concept (Carrey as a Rhode Island State Trooper with split personalities) and goes for long stretches without laughs, the death knell of a comedy. As Charlie Baileygates, the mild-mannered father of three genius African-American children (the results of his wife's trysts with their limo driver), Carrey oozes repressed rage as he backs down from all conflict but loves his children; as Hank Evans, the impulsively violent maniac that represents Charlie's id, Carrey drowns small children, drives cars through business windows, tosses out intense language, attacks litterers, and pugnaciously attempts to combat Charlie's inadequate responses to the world around him. Renee Zellweger is the eponymous love interest with a flimsy character at best. The plot consists of Charlie/Hank having to escort Irene from Rhode Island to upstate New York as well as rescue her from some criminal elements that want her dead. The road trip, so often a staple of the Farrellys, offers diminishing returns. Nothing compares to the Sea Bass incident of Dumb and Dumber here.

The movie only occasionally works when Carrey goes off the rails in terms of violence, bravado, or language. And that does not occur often enough. Chris Cooper, Richard Jenkins, and Robert Forster are all wasted in minor roles. The work done by Charlie's three sons (Anthony Anderson, Mongo Brownlee, and Jerod Mixon) has funny moments, but I never feel that it is as transgressive or shocking as the Farrellys believe it is.

In 1998, There's Something About Mary was the funniest experience I have ever had in a movie theater. On the Friday night screening of the opening weekend, I observed audience members falling out of their seats laughing, and I missed whole chunks of dialogue because I was laughing so hard. There are simply no moments in this film akin to that experience. And Jim Carrey, as plastic and manic a performer as there is, simply does not entertain. I'm inclined to like Carrey's work, but here, he is grating. The film is a disaster.