Starring: Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Courtney Love
Director: Milos Forman
Rated: M
Man on the Moon is one of the most cleverly crafted films in years.
This film portrays the life of comedian Andy Kaufman, who referred to himself as a "song and dance man". The songs he sang and the dances he choreographed repulsed many; yet he was for others a cult figure.
Jim Carrey demonstrated in The Truman Show that he can bridge the comedy/drama divide and here he does it again. Danny DeVito as Kaufman’s long suffering agent, George Shapiro, replicates on screen the balance Shapiro brought to Kaufman in life.
The strength of this film lies in its structure. It starts out an apologetic with Kaufman talking directly to the audience. We are not welcomed into his world. We are always observers of it, which is where Kaufman liked people to be. Forman and Carrey, however, build such sympathy into the portrayal of Kaufman, without us noticing it, that when we learn he has cancer and dies the film elicits a deeply moving response.
