The duo behind new gay movie, I Love You Phillip Morris, had some big hurdles to clear in bringing this story to the screen. First off, how do you make an audience care about a character who is a compulsive liar and a con-man and brings most of his troubles upon himself?
Second big problem is that the real-life story of Steven Russell – dubbed ‘Houdini’ due to his many outrageous and successful prison breaks – is so far-fetched, even for Hollywood standards, that the filmmakers had a job keeping it plausible.
Writers/directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have overcome these obstacles in a smart, funny, uncompromising gay movie that leaves you firmly on the side of Russell (played by Jim Carrey). Ficarra and Requa found the right groove and ran with it, which is fast-paced, (mostly) unsentimental and darkly comic. An early, graphic scene showing Carrey buggering another man doggy style, while the man shouts “cum in my ass” leaves us in no doubt that the creators of Bad Santa aren’t going to pander to the mainstream.
It does seem that fate was laughing at Steven Russell from the beginning: adopted at birth into a deeply conservative family, this gay man with an IQ of 163 would struggle for many years with his sexuality – even getting married himself and fathering a daughter. He turned to Christianity and became a cop, believing he could live life a ‘normal’ family man, but his sexuality wasn’t going to go away and events out of his control finally turned his life upside down and Steven finally got the life he thought he wanted.
He comes out to his family, leaves his wife, moves to Florida and gets himself a gay lover, but this is where the movie hits dodgy ground, suggesting the ‘high cost of the gay lifestyle’ is the motive for Steven starting his criminal lifestyle, which is kind of insulting to gay people for various reasons.
What’s not in dispute is how successful Steven was in conning companies out of thousands of dollars. The fact that Steven’s fraudulent activity went undetected for years is a testament to his skills and ingenuity – he had at least 14 aliases and lied his way into a highly-paid executive job .
The penitentiary is a date waiting to happen for Steven, but he’s not about to let incarceration put a stop to his con-artist ways and so begins his spree of incredible escapes. It’s during his time at a jail in Houston, Texas that Steven first meets the Phillip Morris of the movie’s title. Morris (Ewan McGregor) is a shy, sensitive, bookish sort who keeps his head down and isn’t sure what to make of Steven at first. However, Morris is quickly charmed and dazzled b y Steven and they become lovers.
This gay movie isn’t going for realism in its depiction of prison life: yes, inmates get beaten, but this is a jail where an openly gay romance is tolerated and aided by mean-looking lifers.
When Steven is moved to another prison, away from Morris, he now has even more reason to escape and hatches yet more elaborate ways to be reunited with his lover.
While Carrey gives a fantastic performance as the fraudster on self-destruct, bringing the right balance of insanity and tragedy to the role plus his trademark physical comedy, McGregor is hampered somewhat a thinly-drawn character who’s main function is to underpin Steven’s actions. It’s also difficult to have a lot of sympathy for a character who is either too stupid or too apathetic to realise what Steven is up to when they both get released.
That said, there is more chemistry between the two actors than many straight, movie couplings and it’s great to see a gay Hollywood movie with sex scenes and plenty of kissing.
It’s difficult to end a movie like this, particularly when it’s based on fact and real-life doesn’t usually offer up fairytale endings. The zaniness eventually gives way to more sombre, sentimental scenes, although the laughs stay sharp, and the film finishes with homage to Psycho.
I saw this movie with a very mixed crowd and they all seemed to enjoy it. There’s plenty of laughs – and a few tears. It’s not often you get a gay movie with genuine, mainstream appeal, but I Love You Phillip Morris is a great night out for anyone who likes their comedy edgy and appreciates something a little different.
I Love You Phillip Morris is currently on release in the U.K. and opens in the U.S. on 30 April.
