Scam queen

Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor star in the strange (and apparently true) I Love You Phillip Morris

From The Talented Mr. Ripley to Shattered Glass to Catch Me If You Can, scam artists certainly make for great movies. With their collaboration, I Love You Phillip Morris, co-directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have added an unusual entry to the list.

Phillip Morris rides heavily on its based-on-a-true-story status, as its plot twists and turns are so insane, they’re almost impossible to believe. Jim Carrey plays a married man who, after a life-threaten­ing car accident, decides to live his life honestly as a gay man. Trouble is, apparently all that dishonest living has left an imprint on Carrey, who now feels he can concoct all sorts of ludicrous scams to make money. (Leading a gay life, he notes at one point, is expensive business.) He poses as a lawyer, then fakes a CV that gets him a corporate job as a CFO, which leads to his embezzling that company out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Each scam becomes more and more extreme, and in the meantime, Carrey falls head over heels in love with Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), and the two work to build a decent and honest life for themselves. But foiling this plan is Carrey himself, who has become a full-blown addict to compulsive lying and scamming.

I Love You Phillip Morris works as an oddity—one of its key strengths is its ability to be alternately very funny and poignant. There has been some hand-wringing about the film’s inability to get much box-office traction. Is it because audiences are still too homophobic to deal with Carrey and McGregor’s onscreen deep necking? Is it another sign that smart indie movies can’t win in the current cinema landscape?

I suspect it has far more to do with the latter than the former—most audiences have proven they’re not so squeamish anymore. But I can also see that this film is a marketing headache. Carrey’s considerable fanbase will show up expecting his usual nutty antics. And Phillip Morris is something that will confound those expectations. Never fear a good actor who’s trying to take new risks: check out Phillip Morris if you want to see the famous goofball stretched into a new and better shape. ■

I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 18

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