I Love You Phillip Morris

Film Review

Cinema Release

DVD Date unknown

Jim Carrey, celebrated for his unusual comedy roles and exuberant personality has taken on some more challenging characters of late. In this quite powerful celebration of “outsider” love he portrays Steven Russell, a fraudster and con man who makes his living through manipulation and flim-flam. He lives a double life as a policemen then a vegetable salesman with a devoted Christian wife and kids. After a car accident coming from an illicit affair with a gay lover, he experiences some sort of epiphany. He comes out to his wife and those around him and finding himself a young lover, adopts two dogs and starts living it up.

He soon finds that it is hard to finance a high intensity lifestyle with a nine to five job and soon gets back to his own tricks but on a much bigger scale. When he is caught and sent to jail he meets Phillip Morris, an innocent younger gay man played by Ewan McGregor. They soon fall in love and Russell will do anything to keep them together. After all sorts of prison fiascos they finally make it to the outside world but once again Russell can’t simply live the average life. He is absorbed in Morris and must create a world for them which include absolutely everything they could possibly dream of, this leads to the biggest con-game of all involving millions of dollars.

Russell is a true outsider, it is not simply his love for Morris that motivates him but his contempt for the prejudice and bigotry of the world around him. He truly despises the stupidity of the world around him and has utter contempt for those who cannot think for themselves. His crimes are as much about humiliating those who are foolish and stupid as for love. He does not hurt anyone, there is no violence in his methods, he targets authorities and large businesses and takes them for a ride.

Based on a real tale this is truly an amazing tale. The way in which he fakes his own illness and then death to escape from prison and returns to try and get his lover out of jail is breathtaking. Sadly, since the state of Texas was embarrassed by his constant escapes he was given a 144 year jail sentence. He continues to be in jail to this day. Considering that none of his crimes involved any violence it certainly seems a harsh and brutal punishment.

The film is from writer-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa who wrote Bad Santa. It is a powerful and moving film exploring the length to which someone will go to feel wanted and loved and who develops such a contempt for the society at large that he feels the need to exploit it to achieve the lifestyle he feels he deserves. Russell is superbly played by Carrey, he is sad and vulnerable, manipulative and cunning, and he is filled with contempt, anger and fury yet also with immense love and compassion. Ewan McGregor as Morris is beautifully innocent and while some may find the sex scenes confronting personally I did not find them especially explicit. This is a film which has a powerful emotional honesty, the ruckus about it in the American media including difficulties getting distribution on the U.S film circuit says more about their inability to deal with the open portrayal of an intense gay love affair on scene than anything else. 

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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