Gay conman is dream role for Jim Carrey

The extraordinary black comedy I Love You Phillip Morris has reminded many film-goers just how good a comedian Jim Carrey can be when not he's not just going through the motions in a generic Hollywood comedy.
 
Based on a true story, and inevitably described as a gay romcom, it is the perfect vehicle for Carrey's physical style of comedy. Yet what transforms the film from amusing farce to a touching love story is that Carrey underscores his comic schtick with a genuinely moving performance.
 
Carrey plays Steven Russell, a Texan policeman who is living in the closet both as a devoted family man and as a devout Christian. When he is involved in a near-fatal car crash he decides to abandon his life of lies and declares: "I'm gay!"
 
First-time directors Glen Ficarra and John Reque - who wrote the equally dark Bad Santa - then send Steven on a quest to make up for years of living as a clean-living heterosexual.
 
His first boyfriend is expensive to maintain. Besotted, he turns to embezzlement in order to finance his latest lifestyle and lover.  When he lands in prison he meets another jailbird, the self-styled "blond queer" played by Ewan McGregor.
 
Reviewers have praised McGregor's turn as the eponymous Phillip Morris with the Times' Damon Wise lauding his "admirably restrained campness".
 
But it is Carrey who gives the stand-out performance. As Empire magazine puts it: "It's Carrey we follow throughout, with the comedian enjoying a dream role that allows him to combine his old-school comedic box of tricks - the pratfalls, the sweaty, manic intensity and even the odd rubber-faced gurn - with an emotional honesty that feels earned and genuine."
 
WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:
 
Phillip French, the Observer: "I Love You Phillip Morris is a film of considerable interest, handsomely photographed and designed and impressively performed, though at the end it isn't easy to know whether it's exploiting the audience's uncertainties or expressing those of its makers."

Nicholas Barber, Independent on Sunday: "I thought I was going to love I Love You Phillip Morris. But its initial headlong velocity peters out around the eighth time Russell escapes from jail, and it becomes clear that we're getting an anthology of unconnected anecdotes."John Anderson, Variety: "Given all the references to oral sex, the clingy physicality of Steven and Phillip and the one spectacular, ride-'em-cowboy sex scene involving Carrey, Phillip Morris will give some fans of Ace Ventura heart attacks."

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: "Unfortunately, the bizarre true-life aspect gets swamped by Carrey’s ramped-up zeal, delivering a series of showpiece flourishes which dazzle at first but then prove wearing." (2/5 stars) ·