Andy, did you hear about this one?

Rating: 7/10 (27 April 2003)

Andy Kaufman was definitely a famous actor in the United States. However, in France, he still remains unrecognized. It was nearly normal that American cinema devotes him a movie. This is Milos Forman who took care of relating Andy's life and the result is a fair success. Forman had the good idea by hiring Scott Alexander and Larry Karasweski to write the screenplay. They wrote the screenplay of "Ed Wood" by Tim Burton and to write Andy Kaufman's story, they used the same methods as in Tim Burton's movie: they tried to relate Andy's life as precisely as possible and the result works. Besides, you could say that Ed Wood and Andy Kaufman were two characters who had similar points: they wished to impose their talent so as to go down in history, they had weird habits and unfortunately they had an unhappy end of life: they fell badly sick and died.
The less we can say is that Andy Kaufman was an uncommon and unpredictable character which shows had surprises in store. They were great "trompe l'oeil" and used to lead the public astray. Behind the dramatic side of the situations, Kaufman's shows turned out to be loaded and completely made-up. But in spite of his absurd performances, Kaufman used generally to reach his goal: make the public laugh and it showed his original talent. Moreover, Forman introduced a lot of liberty and movements during the shows that sometimes are close to the surrealism.
Jim Carrey is rather convincing in his performance and restitutes quite well Andy's personality. He skilfully avoids the third-rate acting. It shows that he's into the hands of a conscientious and serious film-maker who masters his movie. As a conclusion: a fair movie and a quite harsh biography.