Thoughts on There's Something About Mary

 

Via Giphy. Courtesy 20th Century Studios.

"Hey, you wanna go upstairs and watch SportsCenter?"
"No, I think I'm just gonna quit while I'm ahead."
"... You're not that far ahead, Ted. *smiles*"

I wish I could like There's Something About Mary. I like things about the movie, like the notoriety it gained once word of mouth spread about things like the zipped penis and balls, Puffy the dog on drugs and semen as hair gel scenes. It was shocking that one of my grandmas had seen Mary and claimed to have liked it. I also like Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller and Matt Dillon's presences. I can't say performances, since I feel like Ben was the only one whose acting felt complete. Matt does better than Cameron in that regard. Presumably by design, Mary almost never gets to exist outside of either Ted or Pat's point of view. We're told that there's something about Mary, but we don't get to see it for ourselves. We just have to take everybody's word for it.

Peter & Bobby Farrelly directed Mary, which has a script credited to themselves and Ed Decter & John J. Strauss. The brain trust made sure that Ted earned his happy ending. The intent is admirable. The execution is interminable. I especially hated that Ben and Cameron go nearly an hour without sharing a scene. Again, though, it feels like that was done on purpose. For better or for worse, the Farrellys made choices in Mary, like having the zipper scene last as long as it does before the reveal of the injured genitals. Remember when that was shocking? Mary is consistent for the most part. There's a game changer or "WTF!" moment every few scenes. In fact, I'd say the Farrellys wimped out by having Ted and Mary end up together. Ted wasn't that much better than most of the other male characters, even if Pat wasn't actually a murderer.

"How could you do that, Ted? How could you have some guy you don't even know spy on me? What were you trying to do? Trick me into feeling something for you?"

"... No. I didn't, I didn't want to trick you."

"Just leave. Okay?"

"Mary ..."

"Go."

*Ted starts to leave, then stops, but keeps his back to Mary* 

"I did it because I never stopped thinking about you. And if I didn't find you, I knew that my life would never, ever be good again."

Mary goes for broke in a lot of ways, but it could have gone further. Okay, so Ted and Mary living happily ever after was always going to happen. Suppose Ted was a virgin? I got that vibe from his fixation on the whole what could have been element of him and Mary and the longing when talking to Dom (Chris Elliott) about his being a husband and father. There's a great payoff to Dom's seeming normalcy, that he's actually "Woogie," the old boyfriend that Mary needed to get a restraining order against. Woogie is one of the many men obsessed with Mary, including Tucker/Norm (Lee Evans), who's been faking a severe spinal injury and orchestrated Mary's breakup with Brett Favre. Mary's devotion to intellectually disabled Warren (W. Earl Brown) was exploited in various ways to Ted, Pat and Tucker's advantages. I wish it was used to Warren's advantage. Suppose Warren was pulling off a long con on his beloved -- in all senses of the word -- sister.

I think my biggest problem with Mary is that it feels like there's not enough of a payoff. Some aspects are fully resolved, yes, like Ted and Mary's relationship. Woogie has the advantage over Pat and Tucker. He at least gets a punchline, asking Brett to autograph one of Mary's shoes, which he's trying to steal. It's followed by Woogie not caring about Mary's outrage and calling her a cocktease. It's not perfect, but it's something. I feel the same way about Magda (Lin Shaye) discovering that the guy she hooked up with is yet another of the men infatuated with Mary. He ends up shooting Jonathan Richman, one of Mary's better performers.

"His friends would say stop whinin', They've had enough of that

His friends would say stop pinin', There's other girls to look at

They've tired to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo, But there's somethin' about Mary that they don't know

Mary, There's just somethin' about Mary."

Not Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Well, love will make you do fucked up things."

-- Box Office: Grossing nearly $176.5 million domestic on a $23 million budget, Mary opened at No. 4 and didn't reach No. 1 until its eighth weekend. It did well enough to come in at No. 3 for 1998.

-- Awards Watch, the movie: Mary won the MTV Movie, People's Choice and Teen Choice Awards for itself and/or as a comedy, also scoring a Golden Globe nod. It lost to Shakespeare in Love.

-- Awards Watch, Cameron: She won the American Comedy, Blockbuster Entertainment and MTV Movie awards, the latter as an actress in general. She also lost the Golden Globe to Gwyneth Paltrow, the ALMA for actresses in crossover film roles to Jennifer Lopez, the Teen Choice Award to Jennifer Love Hewitt and three other MTV awards, for comedic performance and with Ben, as an on-screen duo and for a kiss scene. Cameron also won the Teen Choice Award for disgusting scenes. Go on, guess which one ...

-- Awards Watch, Ben: He went two for seven, losing the American Comedy Award to Roberto Benigni, the Blockbuster Entertainment Award to Adam Sandler (who won for both of his 1998 comedies) and the three aformentioned MTV awards. Ben did win the MTV and Teen Choice awards for fighting with Puffy.

-- Awards Watch, Everyone Else: Matt won Blockbuster and MTV awards, the latter specifically for playing a villain and in a tie with Stephen Dorff in Blade. Chris lost the American Comedy Award to Bill Murray in Rushmore. Lin lost the Blockbuster award to Kathy Bates in The Waterboy.

-- Critic's Corner, the movie: "It just doesn't make me laugh," Caroline Siede wrote in 2021 for the A.V. Club. Tell it to Roger Ebert. "After months and months of comedies that did not make me laugh, here at last is one that did," he wrote in 1998. Gene Siskel also loved the movie, putting it at No. 8 on his year's-best list. "What I treasure about (the Farrellys' work) is that they push the envelope, often after it has fallen into the toilet. They show us images that should logically occur within a film, but are typically omitted by less audacious talent." Todd McCarthy, Variety, conceded that Mary proved "a comedy can be far from perfect and still hit the bull's-eye if it delivers when it counts in its big scenes." Owen Gleiberman wasn't that impressed: "There's Something About Mary doesnt approach the witty anarchy of movies like Animal House, The Naked Gun, or Hairspray. This is the prefab version."

-- Critic's Corner, the stars: Siskel named Ben Stiller one of his actors of the year, along with Edward Norton and Stanley Tucci. Mary invented both Ben and Cameron's roles as stars, Darren Franich wrote in 2011 for Entertainment Weekly. He's a "lovably-loser-everyguy," she's "the self-aware funny model-hot tomboy who is simultaneously exotic (she's Cuban!) and completely all-American (she's blonde!)." Gleiberman: "Stiller and Diller fail to generate an electron of charisma between them." An A.V. Club review from 1998, whose critic wasn't credited, deemed Ben "immensely likeable," Matt "(displaying) comic panache" and Cameron, "usually terrifying (but now) the ideal straight woman." Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, also was unnerved by La Diaz. "Whenever she smiles that Mississippi-wide grin, I can't help thinking of Jack Nicholson's Joker." Ah, well, Kenneth Turan loved Cameron: "A natural comic talent ... her intrinsic, knockout wholesomeness puts a Good Housekeeping seal on the raunchy proceedings."

-- Siskel revealed some of the Farrellys' artistic process. "Peter Farrelly told me that when they tested the movie in front of preview audiences, the longer they waited to show that shot (of the caught "frank and beans"), the bigger the laugh it got." Gleiberman: "Even when the Farrellys score, they overshoot: A masturbation gag features an uproarious visual shock, doused by Mary's staggeringly contrived reaction."

-- Memorable Music: The score is 24-24, continuing the tie between original and non-original songs. I'm making the three Richman songs share a point. They would have earned their own points if each was longer. The song that everyone remembers, of course, is "Build Me Up Buttercup." I had forgotten it's only used at the end, for the character farewell that begins the opening credits.

-- Fanservice Junction: A couple from Cameron, specifically when Mary and her mom are fixing her prom dress, when Mary gets dressed for the day and when Mary gets undressed for the night.

-- Fandiservice Junction: Magda's sagging, sun-damaged boobs. I don't know where else to put this, but I also want to mention Ben, Cameron and Matt's comedy hair. I'm counting the mustache.

-- In reality, Cameron Diaz turned 13 in 1985, while Ben Stiller turned 20. They would have made quite a pair at the prom.

-- Hey, It's 1998!: "I think it was the 'holy shit, I am going straight to hell for laughing at this' aspect of this movie that helped make it a monster hit," A.V. Club commenter Soylent Green wrote. "This came out at the same time a little show called South Park was also taking off to runaway success, so clearly there was something in the air that had audiences primed for this sort of thing." Siede's essay also identified Mary and 1999's American Pie as being the movies that "kicked off a new comedic era," leading the way for Judd Apatow's movies and "rom-coms that wore their R-rating not as a matter of fact (When Harry Met Sally..., Pretty Woman) but as an edgy badge of honor."

-- Hey, It's ...!: Jeffrey Tambor, Markie Post, Keith David, Sarah Silverman, Khandi Alexander, Willie Garson, Richard Jenkins and Harland Williams.

-- "Who works out in six minutes? You won't even get your heart goin', not even a mouse on a wheel."

-- Next: The Parent Trap. On deck: Saving Private Ryan.