Funny and Entertaining

Rating: 6/10 (15 March 2010)

There's Something About Mary is a crazy romantic comedy film. It is pretty predictable but it is still fun to watch. The comedy in this film is definitely not your normal comedy. There is a lot of language and sexual innuendo in this film but it isn't really completely inappropriate. Even with all the craziness in this film there is still a nice story that is being told. This film is about being who you are and living with no regrets.
The movie starts out with Ted (Ben Stiller) who is kind of a geeky, teenage boy. He likes this girl named Mary (Cameron Diaz) who is a beautiful, popular girl. Ted sticks up for a boy who is being picked on and this boy happens to be Mary's brother. After this the two of them are supposed to go to prom together. When Ted shows up to take Mary to the prom he is using the restroom and has an unfortunate zipper accident which sends him to the hospital. After this Mary and her family move away and Ted does not see her again.
The movie then jumps ahead 14 years and Ted is in therapy discussing the issue. He talks about what happened and how he regrets never getting to see Mary again. He then decides to hire Healy (Matt Dillion) to go to Miami which is where Mary is now and "spy" on her. Healy does this and realizes that he wants Mary for himself so he reports back to Ted that she is still in Miami and he makes her sound unattractive so that Ted will change his mind about calling her. This works for a while but then Ted realizes what Healy did and he goes down to Miami to talk to Mary. This is not without a little convincing himself though. He is not sure that he is comfortable enough to do this. Eventually he works up enough nerve to go and talk to her. The two of them hit it off and begin dating until Mary finds out, through an anonymous letter, that Ted had sent Healy to spy on her. This is where Ted begins to realize that he needs to just get over himself and tell her how he feels. As he is walking out of her house, after they argue about the situation, he tells her the only reason that he did this was because he needed to find out once and for all what would have happened.
After this Mary is forced to make a decision as to who she wants to be with. She can be with Ted or she can be with Healy, who basically stalks her. Obviously she chooses Ted; it would be silly if the movie ended any other way.
There is one thing that I think this film does really well. That would be characterization. As I stated earlier this movie is crazy but at the center of it there is a really good story. The characters are really important to that story. I think the producers did a really good job casting the actors that they did. All of the actors portray the characters the way they were meant to be portrayed I think.
Overall I feel this movie was good. It is not my kind of movie but I still enjoyed the story and the characters. It is always nice to see a character work through some issues or regrets they may have and be happy in the end.