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Man on the Moon
(****)
I am a Jim Carrey fan. I say this now without hesitation and without shame. He's got everything it takes to be loved as an actor. He has the talent to really become a character. Most of all, he's really likable.
When Ace Ventura came out in 1994, I was about 13 years old. Even then I saw that the movie wasn't very good. It was rude and silly, overall. But Jim Carrey had a certain charm about him. Every kinetic joke he made, I felt I had to give him credit for trying. Every movie he was in was like this; instead of getting irritating, Jim Carrey worked his magic on me, and I liked him more and more every time I saw him. "Liar, Liar" and "The Mask" were acceptable movies, but his other movies until 1998 were too much.
Then he starred in "The Truman Show", and Jim Carrey showed just what he had besides his likability. He and director Peter Weir took a movie that could have easily been ruined, and Carrey's nuances turned it into a really great film. The pre-screenings of Carrey's first comedy in 3 years, "Me, Myself, and Irene" is showing some true promise, and his role as the Grinch looks to be a treat. I can't wait. I am a Jim Carrey fan.
Man on the Moon may just be what Jim Carrey has been born to do. The movie itself is almost unimportant as far as a plot goes. What really matters is how fully Carrey disappears into the persona of Andy Kaufman. John Hurt once said that the point of acting is to make it so no one recognizes you behind your role. Carrey's got it down.
Danny DeVito co-stars as George Shapiro, an agent who discovers Kaufman in a comedy club pretending to be an immigrant with a dead-on Elvis impersonation; but Shapiro quickly discovers that there's a lot more to his talent than what he thought. Soon he meets Bob Zmuda (Giamatti), Kaufman's best friend and co-collaborator on Tony Clifton. For those of you who don't know, Clifton is a seedy Vegas lounge singer, and he wasn't really real in the beginning; he was instead an idea that Kaufman and Zmuda had. Like all of Kaufman's characters, Clifton has since been given a life of his own.
When Kaufman just isn't giving people a rise anymore, he starts one of the most outrageous and memorable acts ever. I speak, of course, of inter gender wrestling. It's here that Kaufman meets Lynn (Love), and it's Lynn who has to watch as Kaufman deteriorates after getting a rare form of lung cancer.
Director Milos Forman wisely doesn't try to give excuses as to why Kaufman would behave in the ways he does. To do so would ruin the magic. Instead, Forman allows his character to move and behave as a real person.
Forman directed a fine film; but I really can't give him a lot of the credit here. Have I mentioned that I am officially a Jim Carrey fan?