The long-delayed ‘I Love You Phillip Morris’ comes to the big screen at long last
Preview by Steven Foster
How appropriate the Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor vehicle shares a name most moviegoers think is some biopic about the tobacco king. The film has been so delayed, cinema buffs have been waiting for this flick with the anxiety of a two-pack-a-day puffer on a KLM flight. And why not? The story is practically as addictive.
In this true tale, Steven Russell, a married church organist and member of the local police force, has a car wreck and, along with the accident, an epiphany: he’s gay and he’s going to live his life with flourish, even if that means breaking a few laws along the way to homo freedom. But when his cons land him in jail, Russell (Jim Carrey, in an attempt to get back some of that indie cred he gained with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and continues to squander in pandering crap like Yes Man) meets and falls in love with fellow inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor, Star Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi).
By hook and by crook, Russell actually escaped from prison four times, driven by his desperate desire to be with his true love. Based on the novel by former Houston Chronicle reporter Steve McVicker, and written and directed by Bad Santa scribes Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the movie’s been on and off the release schedule almost as much as Russell was in and out of the slammer. Nice to see the pic is finally being set free on the multiplex.
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