Dumb & Dumber

Notes on a motion picture recollected in tranquillity. Story: the two dumbest guys in the world drive across America to return a lady's briefcase. Inside the case is a $1m ransom. Complications ensue. Character: Carrey and Daniels. The lady is blonde (Holly). Un film de: Farrelly, who previously worked on rewrites for Wagons East! Both Wagons East! and Dumb & Dumber feature sequences where a minor character unwittingly drinks piss. Carrey: he's trying too hard to please (no one has mugged this much since Steve Martin's The Jerk), but the force is with him. He's like Jerry Lewis, but less recherché. Less sentimental, too. Context: given American cinema's current obsession with innocence and ignorance (Forrest Gump, Nell, I.Q.), at least this never romanticises its protagonists. They are genuinely, irredeemably, 100 per cent no-hopers. They are not kind to strangers (except wealthy blondes), they are lousy conversationalists, they have no social graces - no grace at all in fact - and terrible haircuts. Economics: they paid Carrey $7 million. The entire budget totalled $15m. In the US to date [1995], the film has grossed $117m.