Dick and Jane

Dick and Jane

You know, it’s hard to make a film that has a message without seeming preachy. It’s harder still to make a movie about corporate greed and still retain some sembelance of originality.

Dick and Jane manages to do both and do them well. This is a clever movie that is dependent on good pacing to make it work. The film could easily have dragged or, conversely, been lost in a mad rush of one liners and silly Jim Carrey faces. But it wasn’t, it was so well made that I scanned the credits looking for a director that was a veteran of successful, well made comedies.

Instead, I discovered Dick and Jane was directed by Dean Parisot, whose previous credits include mostly TV shows like Monk and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Ah, but there, in the middle of his filmography, is an often overlooked movie that I always thought was hysterical: Galaxy Quest.

Anyway, Dick and Jane could easily have been an 80’s film, the familiar theme’s of greed, keeping up with the neighbors and general corporate nastiness running steady through the entire film. Alec Baldwin even reprises his new favorite role as a nutty and villainous corporate CEO. It fit’s right in with the trend Wall Street started nearly 20 years ago. But this isn’t strictly corporate bashing—it’s more an attempt at being the voice of the average guy as opposed to the guy with the Golden Parachute.

Dick and Jane are a nice, hard working couple struggling just to get through the busy day. They both have good jobs, they have a beautiful home, nice cars and are living well. But, that doesn’t seem to be enough. The neighbor has a nicer car, a nicer lawn and likes to rub it in.

This first message the movie delivers is fairly old and done before. Families so caught up in the material things see both parents working, they don’t have time for each other or their own child. It’s an attempt to get us thinking that it’s time to stop keeping up with the Jones’ and start enjoying your family. The neighbor having a new Mercedes doesn’t mean your BMW’s inadequate!

In the case of Dick and Jane they are so busy at movies beginning that their son, having spent more time with the housekeeper than his own parents, speaks more Spanish than English. They have to make an appointment a week in advance to have sex. And when your wife is Tea Leoni, that’s showing superhuman patience if you ask me.

As the film proceeds Dick is made into a patsy by his boss, forced into an impromptu appearance on a financial news channel and eventually unemployed when the ridiculously named Globodyne goes out of business on the heels of a corporate scandal.

Dick begins a hysterical journey of discovery as he tries to make ends meet any way he can, all the while wondering why him. He was the honest one, the hard working one, where’s the payoff? His fellow Globodyne executives aren’t faring much better.

Well, Dick finally comes to the conclusion that playing by the rules didn’t get him anywhere, so he might as well try breaking them. He’s desperate and in a very touching way, he’s devastated at the prospect of letting his family down. Jim Carrey shows a range of touching emotions here that he began to develop in Bruce Almighty and seems to be more comfortable with now. This ability to portray a broad range of emotion is something Carrey did not have early on and it is this ability that will allow him to continue a great career in roles that find his silly faces a tired shtick. He’s adapting to his age well and, while there’s still a place in this film for the zany, goofball behavior we have come to love, I think this will be the movie you look back on and say “That’s where Jim Carrey began to expand his repertoire.”

So while Dick and Jane begin to discover what’s important in life, we in the audience begin thirsting for revenge. Alec Baldwin is adept at being unlikeable and manages toinspire hatred in just about 10 minutes of screen time. The movies other message concerning corporate greed and the golden rule is another tried and true theme, again well done in many 80’s films, that somehow seems fresh here.

Dick and Jane is a well made, well acted and well directed film. If you like leaving the theater with that feel-good smile on your face this is the one for you. It could have been a lot of things, like cheesy or preachy or just formulaic. Instead it was clever and original and a whole lot of fun.