Fascinating, but not for everyone

Rating: 8/10 (29 December 1999)

Man on the Moon is one of the stranger films I've seen in recent memory, which is fitting for the life of one of the strangest men ever to acheive fame, however fleeting. From the first scene, in which Jim Carrey (as Kaufman) tries to convince us the film is already over, the movie is a non-stop celebration of Kaufman's sense of humour, in which the joke was usually on the audience. The film is somewhat sketchy - Kaufman appears to go from nightclub comedian to 'Saturday Night Live' guest in no time flat - but Jim Carrey's remarkable performance perfectly re-enacts his most famous comic antics. I was not really familiar with Kaufman before seeing this film, but I will now try to hunt down his real performances on tape.
The audience I saw the film with didn't really know how to react. Andy Kaufman is not really that well known to Carrey's usual audience, and it wouldn't surprise me if many theatregoers didn't even know Andy Kaufman was a real person. Indeed the audience was as befuddled as the people who paid to see Kaufman do 'Latka' and ended up hearing him recite 'The Great Gatsby' in full. All of this may hurt the film at the box office - but I think Kaufman, in a way, would have approved. (8/10)