CHAMELEON STREET

I’m just not sure I get it. I watched a friend’s screener of I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS and was, frankly, mystified. Is “based on a true story,” or, as this movie states, “this is true,” really a satisfactory replacement for dramatic structure? Cuz this movie has, um, none. Other than Jim Carrey sort of bouncing around from scene to scene chewing up the scenery, taking us from one con to the next. Yes, there’s lots of gay sex. Yes, that’s great. Yes, that’s admirable to go there to such an explicit place with the actors and the story and yes yes yes. But ya gotta deliver dramatically, and not just ride it on out on a plateful of Carrey front teeth smiling that totally intense grin. Now that we are headed in to the Sundance Film Festival, I’m reminded of another Sundance film (MORRIS was there in 2009) that really took on the issues of passing – CHAMELEON STREET, winner of the 1990 Grand Jury Prize. A Sundance press release described it as “one of the first films to examine how mellifluously race, class, and role-playing morph into the social fabric of America.”