There's Something About Mary (1998)

reviewed by
Andrew Hicks


THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1998 Andrew Hicks
(1998) *** (out of four)

I thought DUMB AND DUMBER was tasteless. I thought KINGPIN was even more tasteless. Little did I know the Farrely Brothers' most conventional comedy, THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY, would have the least taste of all. This is a movie where a woman uses semen as hair gel, a dog receives electroshock therapy and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (first DR. DOLITTLE, now this -- is 1998 the summer of performing mouth-to-mouth on animals for laughs?), and a man traps his genitals in his zipper.

Cameron Diaz, previously one of the more distinguished young actresses, presides over the gutteral humor with grace, poise and a lot more comedic sense than I would have pegged her for. As the title character, she's the object of Ben Stiller's affection. Simian Stiller, who has disgraced such movies as THE CABLE GUY and IF LUCY FELL, finally picks a good comedy again. It's been two years since FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, but Stiller still remembers how to play the horny loser role.

The movie begins in 1985, exploiting the '80s as so many of today's comedies manage to do. There's even a Rubik's Cube, for God's sake, and the ultimate reminder of the '80s -- Markie Post from "Night Court." She plays Diaz's mother, while Some Random Black Guy plays the stepfather. (Yes, an afro is mined for laughs.) Less politically correct is Diaz's brother, a retarded kid who asks everyone where his baseball is and gets picked on. When Stiller stands up for her brother, Diaz asks him to the prom and he shows up in a bad tuxedo, all ready to go until the Zipper Incident occurs in the bathroom.

Flashforward to the present, Stiller's bleeding genitalia having ruined any chance of happiness with Mary. As a thirtyish loser (you know he's a loser because his best friend is Chris Elliot), he suddenly decides to look up his old would-be flame, and hires a sleazy detective friend of Elliot's to find her. Matt Dillon, looking nothing like himself, plays the detective, who gets one look at Diaz in a bra and decides he's in love with her.

It's a fun sitcom plot, the loser guy who pretends to be someone else to win the hand of the beautiful woman. This version is pretty close to Woody Allen in EVERYONE SAYS I LOVE YOU -- Dillon has access to inside information about Mary and pretends to be everything she wants in a man. She falls for it about the same time Stiller decides he has to come to Florida. What ensues is a nonstop saga of disgusting humor, a lot of it incredibly funny.

What THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY boils down to is the first romantic comedy about a stalker. Stiller is the least of the evils, in a movie where the suitors include the private detective who listens in on her conversations, the pizza boy pretending to be an English man in arm braces and a shoe fetishist. Surprisingly, for a movie this daring in plot and gags, the ending is about as conventional and predictable as one could expect. It's a good movie, but when will we see a movie this bold that actually functions as satire right to the end?

Visit the Movie Critic at Large homepage at http://www.missouri.edu/~c667778/movies.html

Close to 1,000 reviews with a comedic flair...


The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews