Though we primarily know him for his slapstick comedy (The Cable Guy, The Mask, Dumb and Dumber, Ace Venture: Pet Detective), Jim Carrey has proved on numerous occasions that he can do very well what many other people in his genre cannot do. He can give riveting and believable performances in both light-hearted and heavy dramas. He’s done it with The Truman Show (where he was spectacular and deserving of an Oscar nomination) and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He does it with 1999’s Man on the Moon, which, with all due respect to The Truman Show, is his finest performance as an actor in any genre. Carrey’s biopic of Andy Kaufman is a movie I’ve had on my watchlist to see for years, but one that I never felt “in the mood” for. It’s not that I expected to be disappointed by it (with just a 63% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I knew this movie would be hit or miss for me).
Instead, I knew it would be a different kind of movie and that I’d have to be prepared for anything like many Jim Carrey movies. I liked The Truman Show a lot and appreciated Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. But I’m not a Jim Carrey fan by any means. I don’t think he’s that funny at all. I would be perfectly okay if he retired tomorrow and never acted again. With that said, I did enjoy Man on the Moon, and Carrey was the perfect person to portray Andy Kaufman. This was the role that Carrey was born to play. Regardless if you are a fan of his or not, this is a movie that everyone should see because you’ll learn so much about Kaufman. And if you’re like me, you probably have heard his name a lot but know very little about him.
Like many great biopics (Ray, Walk the Line, Great Balls of Fire), we first meet Andy as a young boy. He’s a troublesome kid who is a bit abnormal. He doesn’t like to go outside and play with his friends. Instead, he likes to stay inside and perform his own version of a television variety program for pretend cameras. From the beginning, He was a performer and understood that live performances were often more effective, entertaining, and fascinating when things went wrong on stage. And he worked this into the act. He also was a “boy who cried wolf” sort of man. As he gained success, his act became more outrageous. Inspired by nightclub and lounge acts, Kaufman’s early material consisted of impressions, simple song and dance routines, and the occasional joke that brought a laugh. But for the most part, it was watching a trainwreck right before you. As awkward as it was watching on the big screen, I couldn’t even imagine watching him perform live and just seeing him crash and burn.
Milos Forman’s (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus) movie follows Kaufman performing in various comedy clubs in the Los Angeles area. A talent manager named George Shapiro (Danny Devito – Throw Mama from the Train, television’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia) spots his awkward yet inventive act and signs him. He then becomes a regular on Taxi. As his fame and success grew, so did his awkward demands. One was that Tony Clifton, a fellow lounge act he called his protege, was allowed a certain number of guest bookings on his show. While everyone else was sad when Taxi went off the air, Kaufman was ecstatic. Though he had perfected his stage act, he still purposefully messed up. His awkwardness and the uneasy shifting of audience members were as big a part of his act as was his actual performance.
With Kaufman, you never really could tell what was real and what was staged. Perhaps he was most known for his wrestling feud with Jerry “The King” Lawler. Lawler was a legend in the Memphis wrestling circuit. Before meeting Lawler, Kaufman had worked in the act of wrestling women in nightclubs. Perhaps not the best decision in the world, but it raised enough eyebrows and increased his popularity. When he comes to Memphis to meet Lawler (who plays himself in this movie), the pair fools people into believing that their angle is for real. This results in the highly famous segment on the David Letterman show, where Lawler socks Kaufman so hard that it knocks him to the floor. We learn later that this was all staged, putting Kaufman into that mystique of “Who is this guy, and what should we believe?”
Through his inter-gender wrestling act, he meets Lynn (Courtney Love – The People Vs. Larry Flint, Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck), who quickly becomes his lover. Though they fall in love, she wonders if she knows him. Is it possible that anyone knew Kaufman? Those closest to him cannot believe truth and fiction even when things go bad. That’s a lousy way to live. If you cry wolf enough, people will eventually stop believing you and maybe even want to stop being near you because of your unpredictability. I think Kaufman suffered from this, but he was who he was through the end.
Man on the Moon is a good movie that everyone should see. I’m glad I finally gave it a chance. I learned much about Kaufman that I wouldn’t have gathered from a book. Jim Carrey does a perfect job as Kaufman. He’s completely believable.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8.5/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
83.5%
Movies You Might Like If You Liked This Movie
- The Truman Show
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- Ed Wood
- Chaplin
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind