New in the cinema: In "I love you, Phillip Morris", a faked AIDS infection becomes the most unpleasant punchline in a true gay love story
Let's keep it short: "I love you, Phillip Morris" is a really funny film - for certain straight people. There hasn't been an opportunity in cinema in recent years to make fun of gays as uninhibitedly as here. And that's not funny at all.
The story: Conservative American Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) almost dies in a car accident and then decides to stop denying himself from now on. He leaves his deeply religious wife and begins to live out his homosexuality. With everything that goes with it: expensive clothes, expensive jewellery, expensive cars, expensive lovers. As no normal person can afford this, "our" hero resorts to trickery and credit card fraud to get the money he obviously needs to be a gay man who is accepted by society.
When Steven ends up in prison because of this, he meets the love of his life there of all places: Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor), a tender blonde. When he is released, Steven has such a longing that he breaks out - the first of many times. During these outbursts, he fakes everything that can be faked: He assumes different identities, bribes, cheats and steals wherever and whatever he can just to get back into Phillip's arms as quickly as possible.
When nothing else worked, he pretended for months that he was dying of Aids, only to flee in the ambulance that was supposed to take him to the hospice. "And in all that time, nobody thought to take an HIV test. That's how it is in Texas, baby." So the filmmakers let Steve savour his coup. In the end, he has betrayed everyone he has ever loved - including himself - and ends up behind bars for life.
First of all: the story is true. Steven Russell is real and he probably still loves Phillip Morris, even though he is now serving his 144-year prison sentence alone in a US maximum security prison. So the story could be really be funny. Secondly, the film has two really talented leading actors in Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor, who are also big stars. And thirdly, the film is probably intended by the makers to be a great, dazzling love story.
But, fourthly: "I love you Phillip Morris" has unfortunately become a homosexual charade of the worst order, in which nothing and nobody is sacred, and in which there is not a single sympathetic character. This is what critics call a complete fiasco - even if some heterosexual cinema-goers may throw themselves away at the two gay, madly in love, constantly overacting, faking their AIDS deaths on the screen. It's not just tasteless, it's stupid and therefore extremely dangerous.
The really exciting thing is that the distributor tries to sell the film as a great gay love story in which loving men overcome prison walls several times in order to be together. That too is outright fraud.
(Paul Schulz)
"I love you, Phillip Morris", with Ewan McGregor, Jim Carrey and others, directed by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, in cinemas from 29.4.
Homepage of the film with trailer
