Comedians are the last movie stars who still regularly come up through live theater. This probably accounts for the much-commented-on aspects of their relationship to the audience: they're desperate for our love; they're equally desperate for our respect; and they hate our guts. Working in live comedy must be brutal, having to be funny to an empty house; playing over the random noises of an inattentive audience; keeping your routine going when the audience isn't laughing; dealing with hecklers. And yet the hostility that comics feel for the audience, the great stone from which they've had to wring water, doesn't distort their artistry as their need for love or respect tends to. Physical comedians work intuitively from universal feelings; they don't need much education or cultivation. As a result, they can go grossly wrong when they try to play directly for emotion or do "serious" pieces. They're working much closer to their instincts, and their professional experience, when they draw on their resentment and aggression.
Carrey was plainly looking for acting awards in The Truman Show (1998) and Man on the Moon (1999). The first gets by, to the extent it does, on its high concept, certainly not on Carrey's "soulful" yearning, while the second, ironically, recounts the mad put-on artist Andy Kaufman's life in a square A&E Biography mode, implausibly presenting him as an inspired innocent who merely channels his perverse charades. Both roles are soft-boiled eggs inside their shells. Bruce Almighty, by contrast, stems from Carrey's need to be loved and is at least preferable to the other two in showing you what makes him a star.
Carrey plays Bruce Logan, a TV newsman in Buffalo specializing in wacky human interest stories who longs for an anchor position. Bruce takes everything too hard, not just his career doldrums but the petty mishaps we all suffer through. When he sees a mute, homeless beggar on the street Bruce thinks he himself has it worse. He does take the trouble to scare off a gang of thugs attacking the beggar, once he feels it's safe to do so, but then overplays the heroic role, at which they turn their attention to him. Trouble seems to pile on top of Bruce, whose complaints to God become so obstreperous the Lord confers on Bruce His powers to see if he can do better.
The idea of a slapstick version of the Book of Job makes a lot of sense because "Why me?" is at the bottom of all slapstick. Of course, slapstick focuses on the physical world--stepping in a puddle, getting caught in traffic--but if you ratchet it up to "Why me, God?" you're still in the realm of slapstick: haplessness, frustration, impotence. Slapstick, however, stems from a universally translatable sense of being out of step with physical existence, whereas complaints about the Almighty stray into, shall we say, "tribal" feelings about the nature of existence that different groups have very definite and highly sensitive feelings about. The problem this leads to is that Hollywood entertainment always tries to anticipate a consensus opinion (and always has) and in order to come up with consensus on a religious subject it has to mash the subject into mush. There is no area of existence, not even family life, that Hollywood has treated with such consistent blandness, in both drama and comedy.
Article comments
1 - Roxanne
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.
2 - Phillip Winn
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?
3 - Alan Dale
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.
4 - Phillip Winn
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. :)
5 - Dan
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
6 - Jan Eggers
Universal Studios Pays Jim Carrey $20 Million to Squat Down and Poop on the Holy Bible. Creating a film that purposely spits a runny phlegm ball of blasphemy...
7 - BB
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...
8 - TDavid
John Ritter was another good physical comedian. Check out the first season of Three's Company.
9 - BB
Erratum: Mike Myers (aka Austin Powers). Oh.. did I mention the vast number of Canadian Pro Wrestlers?
10 - gabbybi926
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.