Good Psychodrama, Not Bad Thriller

Rating: 8/10 (29 June 2009)

Ah, the tyranny of expectations! I remembered this film was considered bad when it was released, but after watching it and thinking that it did its job well, I decided to go and find out what the critics had to say. A tomato-meter of 8%? Why? In a spoiler-laden analysis below, I will do my best to break down why I thought it was effective, and why I suppose most others didn't.
First and foremost, the average moviegoer presumably knows there is nothing ominous or dangerous about the number 23. What is unexpected and satisfying is that the movie and the characters in the movie know this too. It's not about evil forces or vast conspiracies centered around a number. It's about the seductive qualities of obsession and the fragility of a happy, normal life. I don't know why someone who was actually paying attention to the story would insist on the movie being "about" the number, but I suspect that most of the bad reviews spring from that stubborn misconception.
You start with a decent guy who leads an ordinary life. He finds a book that gets under his skin. It doesn't necessarily make sense that a guy like him would be so easily ensnared by the book's premise, but there is a lingering suggestion that there's more than just the conspiracy theory that gets to him.
I don't know if it was one of the movie's intentional red herrings or if I manufactured it in my own imagination, but my beginning belief was that an undiagnosed infection (rabies or otherwise) from the dog bite he suffers in the first scene would prove to be the fuel of his descent into madness. That fades out of likelihood rather quickly, but the story provides the justification that the book gets a grip on him via the perceived similarities between his life and that of the book's protagonist. It's a little thin, but it's enough to keep his obsession moving forward with a patina of respectability.
And this is one of the several places where the movie both plays fair and exceeds expectations. The answer to the riddle justifies that thin motivation both by revealing that the connection between Carrey and the book's protagonist is deeper than supposed, and that Carrey himself is more susceptible to obsession than he seems.
Another place where the movie goes beyond the status quo of the genre is in the non-cartoonish progress of Carrey's obsession. On some level, he obviously knows that it can't be real and that he risks losing himself and everything he values for an illusion. I felt the pain of his struggle to avoid falling into the abyss. There are pitfalls at every step. Maybe he will assault his wife. Maybe he will destroy his marriage by giving in to jealous suspicions about her relationship with a male friend. I kept expecting him to snap and for the movie to turn into a low-rent The Shining, but that never happens. Reading the book messes with his head, but whenever he puts it down and deals with the real world, he doggedly clings to an insistence on facing insane possibilities in the sanest way he can.
Even as the climax builds to the big revelation, the movie doesn't cheap out. He is given a gold-plated excuse to turn on his wife, but he still doesn't want to. He DID uncover a skeleton that was subsequently made to disappear, and his wife's hands ARE dirty. Lest we think the movie will take the cop-out of it being all in his head, his son was there as a witness. He, she, and the audience are never off the hook. I began to suspect where the plot was headed while his wife was exploring the abandoned mental hospital, but the depth and totality with which the book's hidden authorship would encompass all the threads of the story was still a surprise to me.
Family is powerful in this story, all the more so for steering clear of stock "no one believes me, no one will help me" thriller conventions. His wife's one act of apparent betrayal is actually an expression of how deeply she loves him and how desperately she wants to preserve what he is and means to her and their son. The son is eager to help his dad and willing to let the craziness slide for the time being for the sake of the father that Carrey has been. No eye-rolling, no lectures, no pat dismissals or hysterical denunciations--his family and friends are as desperate to save him as he is to be saved.
The movie sets you up to expect the story of a good man driven to become a dangerous, paranoid freak, but ends by revealing the tortuous road by which a dangerous, paranoid freak became a good man and fought to remain one. It meditates thoughtfully (for this genre, anyway) on what might constitute sufficient atonement for his past. It was once said that the best revenge is living well, and perhaps that is the best atonement too. His wife, understandably and forgivably, wants him to stop short of facing the music. She doesn't want to lose him and she feels (not thinks) that he has suffered enough. But it is a measure of just how decent a man he is that he must go all the way. The price will be high, but knowing he lived up to the ideals of the man he (and everyone else) thought he was is worth that price. And by choosing to pay it, he sets an example of integrity for his son that will leave a positive legacy for generations to come.
This movie deserves more credit for unexpected nuance, decency, and grace. Give it another chance!