Once Charlie’s been identified as weak by the good people of Rhode Island nothing he does
Posted in General on 23. Aug, 2010
Once Charlie’s been identified as weak by the good people of Rhode Island, nothing he does – whether passive or aggressive – is acceptable. As a fine line in one of the other week’s films, Secrets of the Heart, puts it, “If you don’t do what people want, they say you’re mad”.Charlie, about to sent on a long, very long holiday, has one little job to do before he goes: escort Irene P Waters (Renée Zellweger) to New York State, where she’s liable for a charge of reckless driving Surprise, surprise, it’s more complicated than that. Irene’s got herself involved with a dodgy businessman, Dickie, who thinks she’s going to spill all to the Feds. He wants her dead and has set an assassin in a cop’s disguise (Chris Cooper) on her trail. Once in Massena, Irene realises the trouble she’s in and turns to Charlie.
In their haste to escape, they leave his tablets behind…And this is where the film’s subliminal sweetness, really starts to bubble through, as it becomes clear that Irene needs both Charlie and Hank to protect her.Hank, for instance, is a far better judge of people than Charlie. The latter can’t understand where his sons got the idea “that the cops are the bad guys” Hank can. And keeps being proved right, which may be why the film’s most infamous gag involves a chicken and a policeman’s rear-end. (Gross? Oh yeah, nothing lacking in that department.)Something else, too, clues us in to the fact that it’s all right to thank Hank Early on, we see Charlie watching TV with his toddler sons.
He’s happy to doze in front of a mainstream sitcom, but they beg to be allowed to watch Richard Pryor Years later, it’s Chris Rock. They may entirely adore Charlie, and believe him to be their daddy (a nice touch, that – for all their high IQs, they’re as deluded as he), but they won’t play “white”. Hank’s Swiftian spleen, whether aimed at smelly vaginas or bespectacled kids, underlines something fairly fundamental: birds of a feather stick together.Yet at the same time, Charlie’s inclusive innocence is never given the heave-ho. Irene is enchanted by a photograph of him and his “whippersnappers” dressed as the characters from The Wizard of Oz. More than a friend of Dorothy’s, Charlie is Dorothy, and very fetching he looks, too. Judy Garland made for a suitably needy heroine, but her orphan smile has nothing on Charlie’s. And it makes clear something we’ve suspected all along; that Charlie is not entirely all man.The fact is, however, that Irene finds this desirable.
Hank may conform to the more typical male ideal – coarse, predatory and hung like a horse – but, as Irene discovers, his interest in women hides a rampant narcissism (Farrelly fans will only need to hear the word “dildo” to know of what I speak). Charlie’s willingness to include everybody in his “family” strikes her as sexy and, just as in There’s Something About Mary, the endorsement of a cute blonde is all a guy needs to be left in peace.As daft comedies go, then, Me, Myself and Irene is an ideological triumph, tapping into 20th century fears as neatly as David Fincher’s two-men-in-one-body nightmare, Fight Club, but doing so with far more generosity of spirit.So why isn’t it a joy to watch? Because, as I say, the lines themselves aren’t that funny. The script’s been kicking around for years – the brothers themselves call it “haunted” – and, after endless re-writes, lacks an organic feel. In There’s Something About Mary, scenes came out of nowhere and slapped you across the face.