Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty: Love Me!
Published June 08, 2003
Bruce Almighty is actually a variation on the Book of Job, in which God lets Satan have his way with Job's life to test his faith. But where the movie goes really wrong is that whereas Job doesn't need the austere lesson, the utterly self-absorbed Bruce does. That means redemption, uplift--notorious comedy killers. But the lesson can't be too specific or it might offend someone. The movie settles for incoherence: for example, we think Bruce is a twit for ignoring the misery of the beggar, but later God (played by Morgan Freeman) chaffs him when he suggests he might end world hunger and strife, and tells him just to work on his relationship. The movie also doesn't acknowledge that the Latino thugs who attack Bruce might have a few grounds for complaint that would put the difference between a job as human-interest joker and as anchorman in quite another perspective. Altogether it avoids suggesting that to have God meaningfully in your life might require doing something that would be difficult to integrate into the way you already live.
In a related way, the opening of the movie presents Bruce's TV work as demeaning and worthless at the same time that it ridicules the plastic dolls who man the desk, but at the end we're supposed to respect Bruce when he gives up his anchor's spot to his rival and embraces being a goof on TV because it makes people happy. This incorporates the thrust of Preston Sturges's Sullivan's Travels (1942) in which a movie director of comedy hits decides he wants to make serious pictures. He goes on the road as a hobo to find out about real life and ends up on a prison work farm so brutal he comes to realize why people need comedies. But Sturges runs two issues together: Sullivan is sick of turning out brainless comedies, but when we see him at the beginning arguing with the studio executives Sturges is also attacking the studio system. Sturges embraces comedy but not the studios, a tension which not only makes Sullivan's Travels a little hollow but would also help wreck Sturges's career within a few years.
Bruce Almighty recycles Sturges's endorsement of comedy but has no problem with the homogenization process that working in Hollywood demands. The only difference between the early human interest segments that are humiliating to Bruce and the later ones in which he's showering love on the community is that the earlier ones with the satiric edge are less demeaning to Carrey. By the end Bruce fully appreciates his girl Grace (Jennifer Aniston), promotes a blood drive, and even gives blood for the first time, but a desire for normalcy, conceived as being contented with what your personality suits you for, is what makes Bruce like everybody else. It's Carrey's demented, voracious ambition to have his way, to get the attention of the entire world, by contrast, that makes him the hottest burning star in our movies right now.
- Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty: Love Me!
- Published: June 08, 2003
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- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Comedy
- Writer: Alan Dale
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Alan - thanks for the review. I will see this movie, but I've noticed that most comedies seem to suffer from the same problem you describe here - they've got to have a character arc. So Carrey is funny, but then he learns his lession. Funniness over.
But what would happen if he didn't learn his lession? WOuldn't it be ultimately dissatisfying, even if the funny didn't stop?
I think the point is that there's a disjunction b/w the self-absorbed jerk Carrey plays at the beginning of Bruce Almighty and the beatified guy he plays at the end. Carrey isn't the kind of low-keyed actor who can make the transition subtly (Adam Sandler is way ahead of him there), which is a big reason the soft comic realism of the ending is cloying. Jim Carrey going about selflessly spreading the good word is not Jim Carrey doing what he has any talent for. And the lesson he's learning is tripe: value your faithful girlfriend; give blood; make people laugh. If this is all you'd get from face-to-face meetings with God then it hardly matters whether He exists. He's dead even if He's alive. And think about it: the movie actually includes God as a character and while talking to him the hero doesn't even get past his job woes, and we're still supposed to identify with him. Wouldn't you want to ask Him what He was thinking about when He set the Holocaust in motion, or Stalinism, or when He created the bubonic plague or cancer or birth deformities, or SOMEthing?
They would have done better either to make Bruce a nice boy like Harold Lloyd who we felt would deserve better if only he would grow up, which in form would be a romantic-comic melodrama with the anchorman as the villain--and a total waste of Carrey's hardball talent, or to make it a total work of irony in which Bruce never understood the lesson, and let Carrey go to the end of the line with the character. If it were a work of sustained irony the audience could identify with Bruce BECAUSE he's unworthy of God's direct intercession. We all are on the average day when we aren't aware of anyone noticing what we do. We're filled with anger and self-pity b/c everything doesn't go our way and for that very reason we withhold from other people--what we have was too hard to come by! The audience would get the lesson even if Bruce didn't and then the moviemakers wouldn't have to spell it out, which they don't have the imagination or guts to do in a compelling way, anyway. As I recall this is how the Woody Harrelson strand of White Men Can't Jump finishes off, with Rosie Perez walking away from him in disbelief b/c he just CAN'T grow up. It's emotional but in a tart realistic way you can respond to and still respect yourself. Responding to Bruce Almighty would be like eating an entire pound of cheap candy you didn't even want at one sitting.
Thanks for reading.
True that, I see your point now. I'll catch the film anyway, but I'll prepare myself for the let-down "Hollywood" ending. Thanks for the warning. :)
I thought Bruce Almighty was a wonderful movie. Morgan Freman Played a wonderful God also.the movie made you think, however it also made me Laugh.I am troubled about a few coments I read from other people who posted coments.I am a firm Believer in God and am a christian,God didnt Create the plauge or any other Horible sickness.those things come from satin himself.I dont Believe for a second that God would want us to be sick, homeless or unhappy. he gave us free will.he wants us to serve Him Because we love Him. it is not a forced issue
Isn't it amazing that the greatest comedians of today come from Canada - especially Toronto. Jim Carey, John Candy, Mike Myers (aka Steve Austin), Eugene Levy, Thomas Chong, Howie Mandel, Rick Moranis, Martin Short, Dave Thomas, etc., etc. And this doesn't even take into account the disproportionate number of Canadian actors and singers that own Hollywood. And for that matter Hollywood was created by some Jewish guys from Nova Scotia, and most of the films today are made in Toronto or Vancouver. Oh Canada...
John Ritter was another good physical comedian. Check out the first season of Three's Company.
Erratum: Mike Myers (aka Austin Powers). Oh.. did I mention the vast number of Canadian Pro Wrestlers?
jim r u there?if u r than my name is gabby.i think i'm your #1 fan please,please,please,please call me at [edited] util then tell celibrities about me.and 1 more thing please hire me at 1 of your movies your my inspiration like jerry lewis is 2
u.please try and call me.
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I just recently saw Bruse almighty. What a wonderful performance Carrey gave us yet again. With every movie he just gets amazingly better. He is full of surprises. He can be stupendously funny and yet insanely sensitive. I can't wait to see what he does next.