Good, but should have been better.

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 1999)

Several hours have passed since I saw "Man on the Moon," and I'm still not quite sure what should be said about it. It is a peculiar film, to say the least, and it is unique in that it is a comedy with a sad ending, even though it is not really a comedy. ("American Beauty" is a similar film in that it is a tragedy with a happy ending, even though it is arguably not really a tragedy.)
I should say first that "Man on the Moon" will doubtlessly receive a great deal of critical praise, and the main reason will be Jim Carrey's performance. As a sort of a low-level movie buff, I can honestly say that I've seen a lot of movies, as well as a lot of great performances. I do not think it at all presumptuous to say that Jim Carrey's performance as Andy Kaufman is not only the best performance of this year, but one of the best of any year. I never thought I'd be able to say this, but I think Jim Carrey is one of the finest actors working today, as well as one of the most courageous. Sure, "Ace Ventura" may not have come even close to making the A.F.I. list, but Carrey has grown and matured. The first sign of this was with "The Truman Show," a fantastic film which set a precedent for Jim Carrey performances yet to come, and "Man on the Moon" is certainly up to the standard. Carrey deserves an Oscar for this role. As a comic figure he will probably not get it. The Academy never has taken comedians serious enough, so why should they start now? In summation, it is unfair to say that Jim Carrey plays Andy Kaufman, because the performance is seamless. Rather, Jim Carrey IS Andy Kaufman. Despite Carrey's immensely recognizable face, one forgets that it isn't Kaufman himself on the screen. Perhaps the most amazing thing about Carrey's performance is that we still do not understand Andy Kaufman after seeing it. If any other actor would have played Kaufman, they would have put their own unique stamp on him, making the audience think they understood Kaufman but in reality only understanding one actor's interpretation of Kaufman. Here, Carrey steps into Kaufman's shoes and changes nothing. In other words Jim Carrey is Andy Kaufman, not Jim Carrey's version of Andy Kaufman.
Enough about Carrey's performance. On to the actual film. A fan of much of Milos Forman's earlier work (particularly "Amadeus"), I was immensely disappointed with "Man on the Moon." The overall quality of the film is jaunty, disjointed, and rather nonsensical. Perhaps Forman's real flaw is that he realizes that Andy Kaufman is an unusual character and jumps to the conclusion that a film about him must be unusual as well. The result is a mass of characters whose motivations and thoughts make no sense to us and a film that is flawed at best. We should not understand Kaufman, but we should understand (mostly) everybody else, and this simply doesn't happen.
In a nutshell, "Man on the Moon" is a half-rate film which benefits immensely from a phenomenal performance by Jim Carrey. My rating of this film is very high, I know, but this is largely due to Carrey. If anybody else had played Kaufman I probably would have given the film closer to two stars.
***1/2 out of ****.