Cannes 2009 Day 7: Flaming Homos Take Control in ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’

I made the deliberate choice of not seeing this during its Sundance premiere, and I couldn’t come up with a better option for a night time viewing slot…so I ventured down to the Director’s Fortnight for a late night screening of a film that is just as much of a U.S production as it is French. Backed by Europacorp, I Love you Philip Morris is a ballsy move for Jim Carrey, if his clout was anything less than what it is now, this would be considered a career killer. Instead the actor flexes the same sort of comedic acting muscles from his earlier films, and judging from the perf I would think that he enjoyed the role than the more mainstream offerings he is currently tied up in. Not exactly from the same mold as the Apatow factory, this uses the narration and freeze frame combo to generate laughs and you would think that the screenplay uses a flip of a coin strategy to determine where both the story and the protag are headed: its fairly unpredictable and the fact that it screams gay throughout means that Glenn Ficarra and John Requa aren’t afraid to take this where they feel like it. The film was picked up at Cannes ensuring that the writing and now directing pair (Bad Santa, Bad News Bears) have a better shot at future gigs – I certainly would like to see how extreme they could go with their comedy. Here are some pics from the presentation. (Full review coming soon).

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa presenting their directing debut.

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa obviously happy that the film got picked up newcomers (?) Consolidated Pictures Group.