I Love You Phillip Morris
2010 · Directed by John Requa, Glenn Ficarra
Original language: English
- comedy
- crime
- drama
- romance
The story
Steven Russell leads a seemingly average life – an organ player in the local church, happily married to Debbie, and a member of the local police force. That is until he has a severe car accident that leads him to the ultimate epiphany: he’s gay and he’s going to live life to the fullest – even if he has to break the law to do it. Taking on an extravagant lifestyle, Steven turns to cons and fraud to make ends meet and is eventually sent to the State Penitentiary where he meets the love of his life, a sensitive, soft-spoken man named Phillip Morris. His devotion to freeing Phillip from jail and building the perfect life together prompts him to attempt (and often succeed at) one impossible con after another.
What it’s like
Bright, sun-saturated Florida in candy pastels: pool decks, sherbet-coloured suburban interiors, glossy rental cars and hotel lobbies gleaming under warm tungsten and open daylight, then a sudden shift to the flat, greenish fluorescence and grey concrete of prison visiting rooms. The camera moves briskly and often, with quick zooms, whip pans and cheeky cutaways, and the score is bouncy and jaunty with pop-rock needle drops that keep the momentum buoyant. Vibe: breezy, sly and warm-hearted, a caper with a romantic heart. It suits a Friday night with friends, a lively rewatch, or a flight where you want something funny that never stops moving. The comedy is sharp and frequently raunchy, with sexual humour, bawdy dialogue and a few tender, explicit-leaning intimacies between the two leads, and there is some car-crash and jail-related peril, but violence is brief and mostly played for laughs rather than gore. Tonally it sits between a con-artist farce and a sincere love story, with a lead who is outrageous and an unexpectedly gentle partner. It is for viewers who enjoy irreverent, fast-paced comedy with a bittersweet romance underneath, and who don't mind a loud, cheeky tone.
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