iPad Round-Up 1 - THE CHANGE-UP

THE CHANGE-UP is a piss-poor reworking of the FREAKY FRIDAY/BIG body-switch movie genre.  In this instance, Jason Bateman's weary lawyer-father switches with Ryan Reynold's playboy soft-porn actor.  Despite the frequent cursing and references to explicit sex acts, this is basically a deeply conservative movie in which the father learns to appreciate his wife and children and the playboy learns to grow up and start acting like a responsible member of society.  The script, by Jon Lucas Scott Moore (THE HANGOVER) contains very few genuine moments of humour, but a lot of cursing and physical gross out humour that fails to fly. The direction from David Dobkin (WEDDING CRASHERS) is workmanlike. Reynolds and Bateman are actually quite good at mimicking each other's speech styles but in service of a weak script it's all for nothing.  Avoid. 

Script 

THE CHANGE-UP was released in late summer and autumn 2011. It is available to rent and own.

I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS - Spit or Swallow?

A (very true to the) real life story of Steven Russel (Jim Carrey) - a Christian, a family man, and a closet homosexual - who after a devastating car crash decides he's going to ditch the lies and be true to himself. And that means moving to Miami, becoming as queer as a $12 note, and starting a life of crime, deception and fraud to fund his exuberant "out" lifestyle.

When the conman is finally caught - he goes to prison in Texas where he meets and instantly falls in "love" with the effeminate, vulnerable Philip Morris (Ewan McGregor). The rest of the story documents the jail-breaks, cons and increasingly incredible antics that Russel employs to get close and stay close to Morris. The true story (1, 2) is faithfully represented on screen - and is so strange that it warrants the "This really happened... It really did" on-screen message in the titles.

So that's the basic plot - but what is this film really about? I think the whole experience can be summed up in four points:

1. An unflinching and uncompromising look at gay sex. You expect some boundary-pushing stuff from the directors of BAD SANTA - and I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS doesn't disappoint. If you're uncomfortable with seeing men bone, you've got a real problem here. Whole sequences revolve around homosexual fellatio. Russel's sexuality is revealed by a graphic and unexpected scene of anal intercourse. Ewan McGregor gives more head than a hooker on a Saturday night. The big black guy behind me in the cinema repeatedly told his girlfriend "I'm not comfortable with this" while squirming. The depiction of sex in this film is pretty gritty and down to earth - and very funny - and challenges the Hollywood status quo of not depicting graphic homosexuality. It's an acquired taste - don't take your Granny.
2. A parody of the "gay" scene, and the prejudice it faces. "Golf? But you're a homosexual!" says Morris to Russel as he tries to fit in in a homophobic Texan workplace. The gay stereotype is exposed as fake - Russel's obsession with being as "gay" as he can be takes him to a caricatured extreme which reflects his real character and feelings but little. Russel's wife and colleagues on the other hand comically reflect southern homophobia (and racism). "So does the gay thing and stealing thing go together?" asks Russel's evangelical Christian wife to his boyfriend. In this way both extremes are held up to ridicule. You could argue that they were easy targets though, and the attacks aren't substantial enough to form a really coherent thread.
3. A raucous comedy that shows that real life is stranger than fiction. There's no doubting this film is funny. It wasn't made to shock - rather it was made primarily to amuse. Carrey and McGregor carry off the smitten gay couple perfectly - Carrey especially amuses throughout and gives a performance that thankfully relies little on rubber-faced humour, and far more on talent and comic timing. The sheer bare-faced cheek of his antics, and the exuberant gayness of whole flick, makes it utterly entertaining from beginning to end. It's worth seeing just for a laugh.
4. A dark and tragic portrayal of a broken man. Other reviewers have interpreted I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS as a romance. Don't be fooled, there's nothing romantic about it. Russel suffers acute separation anxiety due to his adoption and later summary rejection by his birth mother. He becomes the ultimate people-pleaser - defining his sense of worth by what others think of him, unable to tell the truth or approach anything resembling intimacy. This vacuum in his sense of identity drives him to attach to models and stereotypes of what he feels he ought to be - the best Christian ever, the best husband and father ever - then the most screaming queer ever, the biggest liar ever. Progressively deadened spiritually and emotionally, he seeks some sort of connection with life and feelings through compulsive thrill seeking - addictive spending, compulsive lying. Finally, he defines himself through a love-addicted and completely dishonest attachment to Philip Morris. Morris is complicit as the co-dependent in this - flattered by Russel's attentions and turning a blind eye to his obvious dysfunctions. Ultimately, Russel becomes nothing more than his pathology - a borderline personality in the truest sense - his sense of self completely eroded.

So in summary, this is a very black comic tragedy, looking the audience straight in the eye and never flinching from giving us reality, however ugly, sweaty or gay. The real tragedy of course is that it's a true story - Russel is a genuine product of a abandonment, dysfunctional family life, prejudice and stereotype.

His various addictions and compulsions are funny, but only in the sense that a visit to the asylum is funny. He represents the spiritual corruption and emptiness of man. His wife, through her prejudice, unwittingly stumbles on a truth - asking whether the gay thing and stealing thing go together. In Russel, we cannot be sure whether any part of his personality is genuine - or whether it is merely another attempt to self-define or self-affirm through some outside object or activity.

Russel is a pathetic character in the truest sense - his tragic end the inevitable conclusion of his many character flaws.

So, overall expect a shock, expect a challenge, expect a laugh - but don't expect to walk away happy.

This is a really solid film - the acting is consistently excellent, the way the story is told is clever, and it covers some very challenging subject matter. But it's not a romance, it's not DUMB AND DUMBER, and it's not for the fainthearted. With that caveat, it comes highly recommended.

I LOVE YOU PHILIP MORRIS played Sundance and Cannes 2009 and was released earlier this year in Belgium, France, Russia, Taiwan, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Italy, Lithuania and Kazakhstan. It is currently on release in Japan, the UK and the Philippines. It opens next month in Iceland, Brazil, the Netherlands and Germany. It opens in the US on May 7th.

FUNNY PEOPLE - We hate it when our friends become successful

FUNNY PEOPLE is multi-hyphenated film-maker, Judd Apatow's, attempt to move from frat-boy comedy to auteur status. It's not enough that he's written, produced or directed almost every successful Hollywood comedy of the past few years. He wants respect for something other than telling dick jokes and raking in the proverbial phat cash. In order to do this, he has made a self-referential movie about how success corrupts and ultimately does not satisfy, illustrating this with the relationship between Adam Sandler's successful Hollywood funny-man and Seth Rogen's aspiring stand-up comedian. Sandler's character treats women like shit, has no friends, has lost the love of his life by cheating on her and has lost the joy in writing comedy. When diagnosed with terminal illness he basically pays Seth Rogen's character to be his friend. And even Rogen's character, who is meant to be the moral compass of the film, back-stabs his room-mate to get the gig. And what of life in the real world? The "one who got away" is ready to trade in her husband and kids for a narcissistic dream of young love and a revitalised career. And even her husband is an arrogant schmuck. I mean, when you break it down, there aren't any pleasant characters in this movie. There's no one to root for, and no real self-discovery or improvement. Fundamentally, everyone is self-involved. And that isn't funny. It's depressing.

Granted, there are a lot of jokes in the film, and I did laugh a lot. Most of the humour was fairly lazy - the typical dick and wank jokes. The skits that really landed a punch were typically not the classic Apatow jokes - the German doctor was funny, as was Eminem in pure dead-pan satire. But there was way too much self-indulgent fluff involving Apatow gathering comedians he likes on screen and generally just schmoozing. You can see where the guy who had kids breakdown the narrative structure and comic breaks in STRIPES and THE JERK in FREAKS AND GEEKS would get off on this sort of fan-fic. But, as they say, there is nothing more boring then listening to someone else describe their dreams.

I was disappointed not to see a more savage breakdown of the Sandler-Hollywood-superstar persona. I've always found there to be something slightly sinister about Sandler's humour. PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE exploited that brilliantly. FUNNY PEOPLE doesn't really have the balls to try. On a more prosaic note, I thought the second half of the film, with the Star trying to break a marriage, was over-long, drifted and needed drastic editing down. Note to Judd Apatow - it is possible make a classic comedy that's 90 minutes long.

FUNNY PEOPLE was released in July in the US, Kazakhstan, Russia and Canada. It was released earlier in August in Egypt and Mexico. It opens in the UK on August 28th. It opens in September in the Netherlands, Iceland, Spain, Australia, Germany, New Zealand, the Czech Republic, Singapore and Romania. It opens in October in Greece, Estonia, Turkey, Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It opens on November 26th in Argentina and on December 3rd in Hungary.