Review of I Love You Phillip Morris (2010) by Mike F — 12 Aug 2011

I'm really surprised I never heard more about "I Love You Phillip Morris," a delightful dramedy featuring a fantastic lead performance by Jim Carrey. The less you know about the plot the better, as it is based on one of the most interesting, bizarre and memorable true stories I've come across in a long time. This is a really well-made film, and deserved much more fanfare.

Carrey plays Steve Russell, an ingenious police officer in Georgia whose life changed by a near-fatal car accident. As he wheeled away to the ambulance, having brushed up against death, he makes vocal vows about how he'll change his life (it's one of the funniest moments of the movie). He leaves his intensely Christian wife, quits being a cop, moves to Florida, and embraces his homosexuality.

He has a knack for scams, it turns out, though you never get the idea that he's doing them to hurt people - rather, he finds them necessary to keeping the people he loves happy, including his ex-wife and young daughter. Despite being incredibly clever he winds up getting caught and sent to prison, where he immediately seems to adapt to the new set of rules and use them all to his advantage. It's there that he meets Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor,) a naive young man whose affections will become the driving force of the rest of Russel's life.

The movie is impeccably written and acted, soaring by and unfolding into surprise after surprise. Like DiCaprio in "Catch Me if You Can," Russel seems to be at least five steps ahead of the law, and you get the feeling that they'd be better served recruiting him than trying to punish him.

This is a great little movie, truly entertaining. Carrey does career-best work as Russell, invoking not only the humor but the massive heart that lurks underneath the entire facade and functions as its true engine. There's a darkness and a sadness to this story, to be sure, but it ultimately reveals itself as a very real, very palpable love story.

Russell does what he does out of love, and he does more for its sake than most people ever will.