Reviewed by
Bud Carlson
The 2005 version of “Fun With
Dick and Jane” is a new version of an old theme. The “old
theme” being the odd ways that people will live their lives in
order to get ahead in the world, and the extreme lengths to which
people will go to protect their piece of the American dream. The
“new version”, in the case of Dick and Jane, is that Dick
is an up-and-coming Corporate Communications executive who ends up an
innocent-insider casualty when his Fortune-500-type employer collapses
in spectacular fashion. In one fell swoop, Dick goes from being a
million-dollar stock-option star, to then being unemployable, and
finally to a broke and desperate man who will do almost anything to
hold on to his old place in society. So what exactly will
Dick do to maintain his piece of the pie? Well, that’s where the
comedy begins, and the movie really earns its stripes.
On
one level, this movie isn’t really a comedy. Rather, it’s
an angry look into the societal implications of corporate crime, the
likes of which we saw in several cases in the early 2000’s. But I
don’t think the movie does a particularly good job at being a
social commentary, and I don’t believe it intended to be one. If
it had, it would have focused on someone other than a VP-level
six-figure executive. If you are interested in learning more about the
corporate crimes of the early 2000’s, you should go out and find a copy of the excellent Enron documentary “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” In
other words, if you are looking for a good movie about a
class-struggle, I’m afraid you are barking up the wrong tree with
“Fun”.
On another, more obvious level, this movie is an excellent comedic vehicle for Jim Carrey (who plays Dick) and Tea Leoni (who plays a wonderfully snarky Jane). As
the
couple spiral socio-economically downward, they are forced to go to
greater and greater lengths to keep up appearances and to keep their
American dream alive. (Some of those “greater and greater
lengths” are very prominently featured in the advertisements for
the movie as well as in the movie’s trailers, which is
unfortunate … but if you liked the stuff in the trailer, there
are plenty more scenes like them in the movie.)
So
if you are going to go and check out this movie (which I think you
should do, particularly if you are a Jim Carrey fan), don’t go
because you want to see an important social commentary about corporate
crime and its effects on the people involved. Rather, go see this movie
because Carrey’s character does some really funny things. And that was good enough for me.