Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman...not the event-movie people were hoping for

Rating: 5/10 (26 July 2006)

Jim Carrey (as Andy Kaufman) opens this film insisting that there is no movie and tells the audience to leave. The credits roll and Carrey continues, "It was all a joke, there is no movie, go home!" This gag, perfectly in keeping with Kaufman's sense of absurdist (and straight-faced) humor, is more interesting than anything else director Milos Forman comes up with. Forman stages Kaufman's life as if it were a manic episode treated matter-of-factly; perhaps he was just the wrong filmmaker to translate this story. Carrey is just about perfect as Kaufman, who was terribly unafraid to be unlikable and yet left audiences wondering whether he really needed the applause and acceptance or not. The movie is a little plastic, a little smug, and finally--by the end--not very satisfying. The recreations of Andy's TV events aren't well captured, and the wrestling stuff gets dull fast. Courtney Love has a nice (if benign) role as a young woman who loves him, but she's not used much. Carrey certainly gives it a valiant try, but you don't learn anything new about Kaufman via the film--which may have been deliberate. ** from ****