The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

REVIEW: I love you Phillip Morris

Jim Carey and Ewan McGregor are a match that wouldn’t normally be pieced together.  Carey is generally only found in comedies (or trippy films like Eternal Sunshine) and McGregor is genre-defying. What ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’ was about was only really revealed after paying into the cinema.

BY EMMA GALLEN

All the adverts have mentioned Carey as a con man but they didn’t reveal the wit and intelligence of his character.  The sexuality of the protagonist, Steven Russell, came as a surprise, even more so as the film is set in a small town in Georgia followed by Texas.  The deep south cliché is played well, not being horribly offensive but mocking sufficiently as the film is actually based on a true story.   Carey’s character doubles as the narrator who tells the story in retrospect from a hospital bed, with our hero ending up in intensive care on multiple occasions leading the audience to wonder when we are being brought up to the film’s present.  The film’s main highlights are Steven Russell’s escapes from various prisons and how he manages to charm and manipulate his inmate lover, Phillip Morris, out of prison as well by posing as a lawyer.  The film, whish is based on the book by the journalist Steven McVicker about the life of Steven Russell is off beat and full of genuine laugh out loud moments, but does very little to boost any negative preconceptions about the legal system in Texas.  One man escaped four times in five years in the one state; not good PR but a very funny film.

Tags: Emma Gallen, Gown, I love you phillip morris, newspaper, qub, Queen's, queen's university, Review, student, The Gown

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Arts + Ents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.