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Stuck on You
review by Dan
Lybarger, 12 December 2003
Peter Farrelly and Bobby
Farrelly, the minds (if you could call them that) behind Kingpin
and There's Something About Mary, have generated dozens of
guilt-inducing laughs by demonstrating that there really are new
worlds to conquer with bodily function humor. Nonetheless, what
sometimes sets these two apart from their gross out peers is that
their movies can involve the brain and touch the heart during breaks
between embarrassing discharges.
The sibling filmmakers have been
gradually trying to emphasize these two organs in their more recent
films like Shallow Hal, and make further steps with their
long-awaited dream project Stuck on You. The idea of building
a comedy about conjoined twins sounds potentially derisive, but the
Farrelly Brothers wisely counterbalance their incorrigible need to
jolt with a genuine affection for their protagonists.
True, they manage to milk a few
laughs merely by inseparably pairing Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear.
The two actors amusingly bear no family resemblance to speak of
(other than the fact that they're both Caucasian), and somehow
they're rather convincing as life mates. Maybe it's because the only
thing the two characters seem to share is a liver and each other's
personal space.
The two conjoined New Englanders
function seamlessly at work (as short order cooks whose output
exceeds the entire McDonald's chain) and play (just try to get a
hockey puck past these guys). Walt Tenor (Kinnear) is the more
outgoing of the pair and has an easy way with women, even with the
introverted Bob lying on one side of the bed. Bob, instead,
corresponds with a friendly Chinese immigrant named May (Wen Yann
Shih) through the Web, without telling her that he and Walt are more
than close.
While their life in Martha's
Vineyard is happy, Walt wants to quit flipping burgers and act in
something other than Community Theater. The two head to LA, where
Bob finally gets to meet May (amusingly able to hide his seemingly
obvious connection to his brother), while Walt, through a bizarre Producers-esque
quirk lands on a popular TV show with Cher, creatively playing a
character who isn't a conjoined twin.
To their credit the Farrellys
manage to milk a lot more from their single-joke setup than a few
cheap guffaws. Kinnear and Damon manage to do several nifty
coordinated tricks (they do more than merely turn hamburger
patties). Most of these are done in long, wide takes. This means the
two probably had to work a long time to get the stunts right because
these sequences are harder to pull off if the camera doesn't pull
away before the payoff.
The twins might be painted with a
stereotypical brush, but thankfully so are all the other characters
in film. John Casavettes veteran Seymour Cassel is a riot as a half
senile agent who can't quite get the hang of representing a client
in the Internet age. He advises Walt to keep his secret in the
closet (the same advice he gave to Rock Hudson). More importantly,
though, the filmmakers seem to have a genuine affection for their
protagonists, and at times, Stuck on You becomes almost
heartbreaking whenever fate is cruel to the Tenor brothers. Damon
and Kinnear wisely play the roles straight so that the world, not
the conjoined twins, seems crazy.
In fact, the entertainment industry
gets ridiculed far more than Bob and Walt. Cher deserves special
credit for lampooning her diva image and for not letting pride get
in the way of some amusingly biting satire. Had she tried to make
herself seem less self-absorbed or caustic, her scenes wouldn't
work. It should be noted that she's not the only major actress who
gets to make a funny cameo.
The Farrelly Brothers are also
demonstrating a surprisingly subtlety that nicely counterbalances
their outrageousness. One of the biggest laughs comes when Bob
off-handedly manages to correctly pronounce May's hometown in the
old country.
At times, one begins to miss some
of the Farrellys' earlier gross out sequences, and the dénouement
seems a bit pokey. Fortunately, the two atone for these deficiencies
with a closing musical number that's wonderfully silly. Let's just
say that some films really don't lend themselves to show tunes.
It might have been interesting to
see how the film would have worked out if the Farrellys had been
able to pair up Jim Carrey and Woody Allen as they had originally
planned. The film may be better because it doesn't fit their
original design. Similarly, some audiences might yearn for the
bodily function gags of the previous Farrelly movies (Stuck on
You has a PG-13 rating), but others may appreciate the fact that
these guys can elicit laughs from something other than what could
euphemistically be called hair gel.
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