#72: Dumb and Dumber
Release Date: December 16th, 1994
Format: Streaming (Netflix)
Written by: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly, and Bennett Yellin
Directed by: Peter Farrelly
4 Stars
In the battle royale for best comedy film ever, Dumb and Dumber is in there throwing haymakers.
In what scenario will a movie like this ever get made again? According to my deep, deep Wikipedia research, the Farrelly Brothers were given a budget of $17 million ($6 million of which went to Carrey, in only his second lead role) for Dumb and Dumber, their film debut. They had been fighting for years to get it made and break into feature film directing, much like Carrey had been fighting for years, working his way from crummy Canadian comedy clubs to bit parts in Hollywood movies to In Living Color. And for his part, Jeff Daniels had the confidence to call D&D’s producers’ bluff and accept a paltry $50,000 paycheck for his role as Harry, he was so confident in the talent of the unheard of Farrelly Brothers and, at the time, TV funny guy Jim Carrey.
All the talent involved have a pent up hunger to prove themselves, and I could feel it on this last viewing. These are rodeo bulls and we, the audience, are the poor schmucks climbing on their backs. It’s an aggressively funny movie. There is yelling, stealing, strangling, lying, screaming, ball punching, shitting, biting, drugging, taking advantage of children, taking advantage of the blind, sexual assault, misogyny, farting, and animal abuse.
But incredibly, it’s somehow never mean-spirited and it’s never ugly. Lloyd and Harry genuinely love each other. They genuinely have dreams and hopes. They struggle, but they try, and no one suffers more than they do from their dumbness. We want the best for Lloyd and Harry, bless their big hearts and small brains.
And when you’ve seen the movie dozens of times, it’s the little moments that tickle you as much as the bigger, grosser set pieces: Lloyd trying to get out from behind the airbag of his limo to warn Mary about her briefcase, or sitting in his apartment completely befuddled as to why cops get so mad about people leaving the scene of an accident. Or Harry homicidally laughing in the park by their barrel fire, or bluntly explaining that Petey’s head fell off because “he was pretty old.”
All the stars aligned for Dumb and Dumber, which has a strong claim as the Farrelly Brothers’ and Carrey’s and Daniels’ best film. They were young and they were hungry. If Dumb and Dumber bombs, all their careers probably go sideways and we don’t get Farrelly’s There’s Something About Mary, and Carrey probably doesn’t get The Truman Show, and Daniels probably doesn’t get a role in something like The Squid and the Whale. Thank the film gods they were dumb enough to push their chips in on Dumb and Dumber.
