THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
DISGUSTING = FUNNY! MARY SURE IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR!
I have not seen an audience laugh so much in a film since... Dumb and Dumber maybe? Interestingly enough, the team behind the cult comedy of the nineties (the Farrelly brothers), have come up with a movie that might even top that off. If you thought the toilet humour was overdone in Dumb and DUmber, well, I can tell you, it's the entre to this film. Toilet humour (literally!) on film is brought to a brand new low in this film, and as a result, audience members are not only laughing out loud as never seen before, but at the same time, are squirmishing in their seats. Some squirmishy parts (especially the "main" thing that ends Act 1 of the film) affect us men more than women.
The story focusses on Ted (played by Ben Stiller). He is a high school student and a geek at that too. He can't even get a girl to consider him as a last result to go to the prom. Enter into the picture, Mary, a beautiful girl, shot almost in slow mo to accent even further her babe quality. Needless to say, after an incident involving her mentally challenged brother, who is trying to retrieve a base ball, she meets Ted, speaks to him, and after a while, asks him to the Prom. Due to an unfortunate episode come Prom night, Ted will never get to the prom. Instead, he is involved in a scene that will be etched in the pages of cinematic low comedy (audience drowned out much of the dialogue) history.
We then cut ten years later and see that Ben is still pining for Mary, cause there's something about her. Cameron Diaz plays Mary perfectly. She does her role even better than Lauren Holly in Dumb and Dumber, mainly because she is 500% more beautiful. You hardly doubt that there'd be so many men chasing after her in the way depicted in the film. We are introduced to the other characters, one of which (played well be Matt Dillon) uses listening devices to find out what Mary likes, using it to his advantage (This piece of plot seems to have been derived from the plot involving Julia Roberts and Woody Allen in "Everyone Says I Love You"). There are many very funny situations throughout the whole film, and I can't really talk about them cause I'll wreck it for people who want to see the film and haven't done so yet. In spite of all that gross humour and sick jokes lies a movie that does really have a heart (if that is what you look for in a film), and this is almost single handedly thanks to Cameron Diaz, who has this perfect quality that hardly any actress in film has.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Well, there's nothing much about the camera work that makes this film special. Cameron Diaz is made to shine even more in this film than in the MASK. She doesn't need to do anything to have an amazing affect. Now into arty farty mode (cause a critic has to find an "artistic" reason to say that he or she liked the film), I'd like to discuss a scene in the film that (from first viewing) struck me as pretty well done. It's the bit where they're at some fair and Mary is eating blue fairy floss. That "blue" colour fills the screen. You'll notice how in background shots you'll see the people walking past them wearing blue jeans, but (in the background anyway) out of focus so as to make it fit in more with the colour of the fairy floss. Shooting the background out of focus also puts into sharper focus Mary (I think of it as the 'portrait' set up on my dad's Cannon camera - whereby to make something stand out even more, you set it up in centre frame, and it focuses on that, making the background more blurry - unlike deep focus, which would show things shot a distance away just as clearly as something close up or in centre frame). A scene like that would probably take much effort to conceive of, especially with the placement of making the whole 'fair scene' look real. And even though that scene is really not important (don't quote me on that, cause I can't remember what happenned - for me, the volume was switched off in that scene), it shows that the film makers have really thought about developing not only the characters but about some sort of artistic coherence, making Diaz look even better and, yet again, showing us why there's something about Mary (if anyone can look good surrounded by that light blue colour, I give them full marks. Diaz transcends that colour!).
Interestingly enough though, the images in this film seem to contradict the context of the words. While Mary herself is dedicated to intellectual handicaps and will not tolerate much of a negative attitude toward her brother, the imagery of the film dedicates itself to poking fun at them (Not that the narrative is free from insults towards the disabled - the bit where Dillon's character calls them "retards" is very funny). This aspect of the film is the most politically incorrect. People have been so fashioned to political correctness that they found it difficult to laugh at the scene where the man with a walking problem had to try to pick up his keys. I suppose it's a matter of taste too. This use of the image to contradict the supposed "sympathy" aspect towards the handicapped is interesting, because it is like when some companies advertise, the pictures have different meanings to the context of the words or send out a different set of morals to those which govern "political correctness" (so, according to Bell, there may be coded sexual references in the images even if the words of the ad don't mention it).
NARRATIVE
The narrative is pretty standard. It almost follows the structure of Dumb and Dumber (certainly, there are many thematic similarities - including the almost psychopathic obsession with a paticular woman). The structure too is pretty standard as well. There are some great variances to normal methods of narrative structure, including the on screen soundtrack at times. Watching the strumming is also funny, especially when it's not in sinc (or when a strum happens while the man's hands are away from the guitar). As far as story goes, in many ways, you could say: "take out all the sick jokes and this movie is nothing." But that is like saying "take out the war in Oliver Stone's Platoon, and you have nothing." The "listening in to get a girl" aspect has been done before (and perhaps to a more psychotic extreme) by Woody Allen (who also may have copied it from a previous great comic), but since no one watches Woody Allen films, it may as well be 'original'. It's always good to see a film where a total geek can go to the prom with the best looking chick around. As fictional as that is, it leaves us with some hope. Perhaps the greatest thing about the narrative though, is the way it is all tied together. Ted has braces, and as we later find out, perhaps Mary's choice of prom date was not necessarily out of her character. The Psychiatry session that Ted has is very relevant in a later scene. A film that ties narrative together well means that on a second or third viewing, there is something new to discover.
CONCLUSIONS
This will be as big a hit in Australia as it is in the USA. I think everyone in that audience will get the word out to others to go and see this film. The preview screenings were a touch of marketing genius, ensuring four days of word of mouth (the best form of advertising). I suppose the movie comes down to whether people love seeing toilet humour on the screen. I sure as hell do; and some of the situations presented in this film, are not so far from reality as one would think. It would be hard to find someone who could say with a straight face, free from any moral baggage, that the film (or at least some parts) is laugh out loud funny. If they do, they are outright lying, or they have let their sense of morals get in the way of what is a funny film. There's something funny about seeing someone trip over stairs... I think that's what we humans find instinctively funny. The Farrelly brothers seem to understand this primal sense in humans, and they play on it to its maximum effect.
85/100
PS. There is one scene where Ted has an encounter with a dog. You see some of this in the trailer to the film; but it really is a standout of physical comedy. The sheer force of that performance (I'm sure there's no special effects in the way he's reacting) beats out even Jim Carrey's KOs in Liar Liar (the toilet scene). It is even more surpring because Ben Stiller, unlike Jim Carrey, does not stand out as a naturally physical comedy type performer.