BRUCE ALMIGHTY **
DIRECTED BY Tom Shadyac
STARRING Jim Carrey, Jennifer Aniston, Morgan Freeman
US 2003 101 mins.
LEGALLY BLONDE 2 **1/2
DIRECTED BY Charles Herman-Wurmfeld
STARRING Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Regina King, Luke Wilson
US 2003 95 mins.
By Preston Wilder
WHAT A JOB, being a movie star – having your ego massaged 24/7, living at the centre of your own personal universe. It’s like … well, like being in a Jim Carrey movie.
Five years ago, in The Truman Show, he was an ordinary guy who discovered the world was a sham, built entirely to revolve round his own fears and desires. Now, in Bruce Almighty, he gets to play God, and again ends up living in a world that’s been custom-made for his own personal needs. Someone has some God-complex issues to work out, in my opinion.
Bruce is a TV reporter in Buffalo, NY; he wants to be a news anchor but instead gets all the wacky human-interest stories, forcing him to “lower and debase myself for the amusement of total strangers”. By the end of the movie he has met God (Morgan Freeman), been God for a couple of weeks, and finally realised that making people laugh is nothing to be ashamed of: this obviously links up with the real-life Jim Carrey, who’s been trying for most of the past decade to be more than just a clown, baffling his fans by alternating Ace Ventura with the likes of The Majestic. Indeed, Bruce Almighty may be the most insecure – and narcissistic – movie of the year: a film where God Himself comes down to reassure the star that he shouldn’t be ashamed of what he does. There is “divine spark” in you, Jim is told – “the gift of bringing joy and laughter”. You can’t argue with God (or at least Morgan Freeman).
Is the film funny? On and off. There is one very funny scene – where Jim uses his God-given powers to take revenge on a rival – but even that gets slightly over-milked. Otherwise, Carrey does a lot of random mugging, pulling faces to disguise the dearth of actual gags: when he gets his coat stuck in a car door (prompting him to fall flat on his back as he starts to get out of the car), that’s officially a joke – but when, for instance, he tosses and contorts around in bed to show how much he hates getting up, or does impressions in front of the mirror with a hairbrush for a moustache, that’s just Jim being a wild and crazy guy. It’s as though he made a deal with the studio: I’ll give you the grimaces and funny voices, I’ll do the sappy family-values message – but only if I get to put my personal stuff in there somewhere.
Easy to see how the film would resonate with someone in Carrey’s position. Bruce is completely self-centred: as God, he thinks only of himself, not bothering to help others (and in some cases hurting them). He brings the moon closer to create a romantic moonlit night for girlfriend Jennifer Aniston – and causes tidal waves to devastate Japan as a result. Yet he also has a responsibility – millions of prayers buzzing around in his head, like the millions of fans a star must give himself to. The film, inevitably, ends with a homily about helping others, i.e. being less selfish, but Bruce’s transformation has everything to do with self-fulfilment: as God (or Morgan Freeman) puts it, “You need a miracle? Be the miracle!”
Bruce Almighty is a saccharine movie, thick with a kind of cuddly, unthreatening (and peculiarly American) religion. Freeman’s avuncular Lord follows in the footsteps of the Oh God films from the 70s – starring George Burns as the Almighty – and Joan Osborne’s smash-hit pop song from a few years back: “What if God was one of us / Just a slob like one of us / Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home”.
Yet there’s more to it than that: Carrey may pretend to be ‘one of us’, but he’s not fooling anyone – indeed, the ‘real’ Carrey may be closer to the Bruce of the early scenes, who knocks a glass over in a rage and yells, “I’m not happy with a mediocre life!” He’s a movie star, with a king-size ego and ambition to match. Bruce Almighty was a hit, but Carrey can do better – and he knows it.
He’s not the only one. I’ll see your Jim Carrey and raise you Reese Witherspoon – a crack comedienne and notably intelligent actress (see e.g. Election), currently babysitting childish comedies like Sweet Home Alabama and Legally Blonde 2, a sequel to the (hugely successful) adventures of not-so-dumb blonde Elle Woods. The first LB saw her going to Harvard and outsmarting the various swots and snobs; this sequel has her going to Washington D.C., and outsmarting the various Beltway insiders and men in suits (an early shot shows her as an island of pink in a sea of grey). By the end, she’s passed a bill, rescued various animals from a cosmetics-testing lab, and of course addressed the Senate. But of course.
Everything worth recalling about the film comes from Witherspoon, her breezy confidence and crisp way with a line like “Good morning, fellow public servants!” Elle is subtly different in the sequel, less a Clueless-style Valley Girl (though that film remains an obvious influence) and more of a Gidget, the archetypal 60s teenager, brash and eternally optimistic (significantly, Gidget was played on TV by a young Sally Field, who co-stars as Elle’s boss). Reese makes her irresistible, with a joyous smile and at least three different shades of “Oh”: the basic, bright-eyed “Oh!” – like “Omigod!” – when she’s about to squeal with joy (which is often); an occasional “Oh” of surprise, as when her Chihuahua tries to have it off with a Rottweiler; and a temporary “Oh…” of disappointment, when people are mean or the real world intrudes on her better, sparklier one.
The film similarly intrudes on her performance, clearly unworthy of her charms. It’s very silly, not in a good way – all squealing bimbos and jokes about Cosmo and Versace – and pointlessly plotted so Elle triumphs either through good luck or only-in-the-movies inspiring speeches. Ms Witherspoon – so we’re told – was paid $15 million, and obviously earned every cent, since she alone makes it worth watching; fortunately the film was a flop, meaning she can now move beyond Elle Woods. Legally Blonde 2 is enjoyable, but Reese can do better – and she knows it.
