REVIEW: Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey Are Prisoners of Love in I Love You Phillip Morris

From there Steven, the consummate wheeler-dealer, works all kinds of con-man magic: He not only finagles a transfer to Phillip's prison block; he gets himself assigned as Phillip's cellmate. When he's released -- his time is up before Phillip's is -- he poses as a lawyer in order to spring his beloved. Then he sidles into a life of white-collar crime, wanting the best life money can buy for himself and his partner.

Ficarra and Requa have heavily stylized this weird and occasionally wonderful story, and you can see why they'd make that choice: The story is just too unreal to seem true, so why not push the boundaries of realism? And they know how to get laughs, even from moments that could be potentially awkward. The scene in which Steven comes out to us is perhaps the funniest thing in the movie: Ficarra, Requa and cinematographer Xavier Grobet use some clever camerawork, narrated with a voice-over from Steven, to hammer the point home.

Still, I Love You Phillip Morris is often a little too arch, a little too self-congratulatory, for its own good. You might think Carrey would wield some of the blame for that, given his propensity for mugging, but his performance here is quite restrained and, in places, extremely moving -- he turns on that exaggerated crocodile smile only when it's really called for. But too often Ficarra and Requa don't just let events happen -- they accent them with figurative arrows and underlining. And it's often hard to tell what tone they're trying to strike. We're supposed to have complicated feelings about Steven; his web of deceit becomes thicker and more tangled as the story progresses, even though he still loves Phillip dearly. But sometimes the movie itself seems to be trying to simplify those feelings. It cries out repeatedly, "This is a guy who'll do anything for love!" even as the vibe underlying Carrey's performance is, "Wow, this guy is really kind of a scumbag."

But if the movie around them makes some missteps, Carrey and especially McGregor still give us plenty to watch. There's a slight awkwardness to both of these performances -- it's as if the actors recognize that they're treading into what is for them unfamiliar territory, and they want to maintain some humility about it. But that may account for why the affection these two characters feel for each other comes off as casual and natural, even within the movie's broad stylization. Carrey's Steven is aggressive and wily -- he knows what he wants out of life, and by God he's going to have it -- which is what makes his occasional moments of emotional uncertainty so touching. McGregor walks a careful line between being mischievously sweet and merely passive. When Steven begins wooing Phillip (by, for example, sending chocolates to his cell hidden inside a toilet-paper roll), Phillip responds hesitantly, with a coquettish "Oh, I really shouldn't." But as the two grow closer, sharing all kinds of secrets and jokes, Phillip shows a bit of a devilish side, too. He's unaware of Steven's illicit activities, but as McGregor plays him, he also gives off a sense of not wanting to know. He prefers to believe in the romantic fantasy that Steven insists on building for him.

And as the movie presents that fantasy, why wouldn't he? The prison love scenes in I Love You Phillip Morris are all the more moving for how riotously unrealistic they are. Grobet and production designer Hugo Luczyc-Wyhowski render Steven's and Phillip's jail cell in rich tones of amber, ochre and soft green -- these are jailbirds who've called in the right decorator. Phillip asks the burly, foul-mouthed con in the next cell to put on some music, and after a grumpy protest, he complies: The sound that comes wafting out is Johnny Mathis' "Chances Are," which sets the mood for Steven and Phillip to start cuddling in their bunk. They eat together in the prison cafeteria, enjoying steak and shrimp (thanks to Steven's bartering skills) while the other inmates shovel gruel into their gobs. They shave together, winking at each other in the mirror. Ficarra and Requa present Steven and Phillip's forced confinement as a cozy honeymoon, a metaphor for the blissful, unrealistic cocoon of early romance. Love is a prison all right, but it's better to be locked inside than out.

Pages: 1 2