Me, Myself & Irene (2000)

We, the people doing the Thursday Movie Picks series, had a meltdowns week earlier this year and Steven from Surrender to the Void picked Me, Myself & Irene. It sounded like a fun Jim Carrey movie so I finally checked it out. 

The film is about Charlie Baileygates (Jim Carrey), a Rhode Island State Police trooper whose life started falling into pieces on his wedding day when his wife (Traylor Howard) started cheating on him and eventually gave birth to three African-American kids. When she leaves him, Charlie takes upon the task to raise the triples. He becomes a loving and loved father but everyone else mistreats him and takes advantage of him. One day he snaps, his other rude and violent personality, Hank, takes over and, diagnosed with split personality disorder, he's assigned to escort a woman, Irene (Renée Zellweger) back to New York and must protect her from her corrupt ex-boyfriend (Daniel Greene). 

Although it's directed by the Farrelly brothers and it stars Jim Carrey, I was expecting the film to be good as it starts out as an interesting story about a man who is afraid of confrontation. Unfortunately, as I should have expected from those guys, the film takes a turn for the worse and the plot not only is silly, over-the-top and predictable but it's also insulting to all those people suffering from mental illnesses. Somehow, the story manages to be engaging. Bits of it at least as at times it feels so dragged and unappealing.

The characters aren't much better either, definitely too one-dimensional for a comedy like this too. Charlie is the kind of man you feel sorry for; Hank is the kind of guy nobody likes. The confrontation between these two should be funny but because of the lack of development, it is not as funny as it could have been. The character of Irene is also pretty thin and shallow. The rest, they are not even worthy of a mention. 

20th Century Fox

Me, Myself & Irene is not an utter waste of time though. Although he alone was not enough to keep me interested and engaged throughout the entire film, Jim Carrey once again displays his terrific facial expressions and weird body movements and gives a funny and entertaining performance both as Charlie and Hank —he is way more effective as Hank though. Renée Zellweger is completely wasted in here, but she is so sweet and charming, you end up caring about her character. 

As for the humour, it's juvenile, crude and racist at their best. It's not like I was expecting a clever sense of humour, it's the Farrelly brothers after all, but they could have spared us some of those dreadful jokes and gags. They do manage to get a few genuine laughs though.