It’s set in the 50s, and our protagonist is Peter Appleton (Carrey). He starts narrating the story for us: he lives in Hollywood Los Angeles and is a movie writer whose first movie just opened in the theaters. His girlfriend stars in it, and he thinks he’s ‘living the life’, as they say. He’s working on another script when suddenly the tide turns for him: he’s being accused of being a communist, his movie has been put on hold, he’s risking everything he’s got for something he never did and doesn’t care about. He’s not into politics at all, but his life is about to change because someone made his name. Of course the girl dumps him right away. One night he drinks a lot and then goes for a ride, alone in his car. When he notices a small animal on the road he turns the wheel and crashes his car, not too violently, and is kind of relieved that things didn’t get worse, but it doesn’t last long because things go worse indeed. It starts raining heavily, and trying to move his car back on the road, the car slips and slowly falls into the river. He couldn’t get out because he locked his coat in the door, so he falls down too. He manages to get free of the coat and get out of the car, but it’s difficult to swim and he ends up hitting his head. Next thing we see, he’s on a beach, alive, and a man asks him what happened to him. He doesn’t remember. Everyone in the little town of Lawson is happy to help him, until Harry (Martin Landau) says he recognizes him as his son Luke Trimble, who’s been missing for nine and a half years. He never came back from the war, but Harry never lost hope and is sure that he’s Luke.
The town lost many young men to the war, and they’re all so happy to welcome him back. Everyone accepts him as Luke and they try to help him remember. Luke’s girlfriend Adele too. They say that his memory will come back and seeing old things might jog it sooner, but nothing seems to work, nothing rings a bell.
Of course we know why, we know that he’s not Luke, we know he’s actually Peter, and therefore nothing they say can jog his memory because those are not his memories.
There’s a celebration for him, and Harry wants to reopen the old movie theater - the Majestic - now that he’s back, and all the town helps and they all attend the movies, and they are all getting along, happy to have him back. He’s still troubled by the fact that he doesn’t remember anything, but he likes this new life and those kind people, until they show the movie that he - Peter - wrote: “sand pirates of the Sahara”. Watching it, he remembers the lines, finally realizes that he wrote it, and he can see on the movie poster his real name. He doesn’t say it right away because Harry has a heart attack, and so he lies to him to let him die happy and in peace. At the funeral though he tells Adele, who is crushed by what she had suspected already what had ignored because she had wanting him to be Luke so much, she even fell in love with him.
Meanwhile, the Peter Appleton case has not been forgotten of course. They’ve been trying to track him down and finally succeeded. Big black cars invade the town, and Federal men come out with a subpoena for him. Now the truth is out and everybody in the city learns that he’s not Luke.
The old man working at the theater is the only one who was sure that he wasn’t Luke since the day of the celebration, when he couldn’t play the classical music that was Luke’s specialty but could play, on the piano, more modern, danceable tunes that were impossible for Luke. He didn’t say anything, actually lied to protect the lie, saying that he taught him that music, because Luke being back had meant so much for that town who had lost so much.
Peter has to go back to Los Angeles to appear in front of the court. The lawyers had prepared a statement for him, where he sort of apologizes, he ‘gives up’ his communist activities, naming other communists, and by doing this he’ll have back his life.
Adele is horrified to hear that he proposes to confess something he didn’t do,but he yells that he’s not like Luke, that he only ever wanted to survive, that he’s not as brave as Luke was and he wants back his life. Adele gives him the book of the Constitution of the US that Luke had given her, and also the last letter that Luke wrote to her (that according to the credits was read by Matt Damon). It’s the letter of a brave young man who knows he’ll probably die in the next battle but who is determined to do what’s right and stand up to bullies, as he says.
The whole town of Lawson has their radios on to listen to what Peter and the court will say (well, the doc and Adele have a tv). Peter says that the only reason he once attended a communist meeting is that he wanted to impress a girl. At the moment of the reading of the statement, he can’t do it; he starts sweating and talks about Lawson, and Luke and the other boys who died in the war, and the America they died for, free and just. He makes a big speech and then walks out under the flashes of the reporters. In the car with his lawyer, he thinks he’ll go to jail, he’s sure of it, but the lawyer tells him that to save face they managed a deal, and basically he’s free.
He goes back to his old life, going on with the movie he was making, but his heart is no more into it. He replies to the studio executives (that we never see, only hear) something like “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” and walks out, and I guess he’s sort of giving up that part of his life. He sends a telegram to Adele, saying he’s coming back to return what she gave him - the book and the letter - hoping to see her at the station but understanding if she won’t be. He’s rather surprised when he arrives and sees that the whole town is there to welcome him back, as Peter this time.
He’s again part of the community and goes back to work at the Majestic, and the last scene is a panoramica of some pictures that show us that he will marry Adele and have a kid, and they’ll be happy.
I liked it a lot. My favourite moment might be the one when he realizes he’s not Luke. It’s a sad moment, he doesn’t want that, but he’s finally found something that can really jog his memory because it belongs to him. There’s a moment, when he’s watching the movie, and “Roland the Intrepid Explorer” (Bruce Campbell) has defeated “the evil but handsome Prince Khalid” (Cliff Curtis) and is about to kiss the girl, while Peter is standing at the entrance watching, and I’m all caught up in this tense moment and then the actors go “Oh Roland” - “Oh Emily”, and he goes “oh shit!”, and I laughed and cried at the same time. It was funny and yet it was a dramatic moment, because he runs to read his name on the poster and realizes that he’s living a lie.
Also, on a side note: Carrey is so talented that when you say his name people say how good he is or how funny he is, but can we add how extremely good-looking he is here? Why nobody ever says that? He’s so handsome.. I mean, after saying what a great actor he is, why nobody adds how beautiful he is too?
Reading the credits, I also saw that the voice of the studio executives were of Garry Marshall, Sydney Pollack, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, and two more that I don’t know, sorry.
I saw other things, that maybe are normal but I never noticed before.
Jim Carrey had his own security guy, a massage therapist, his own costumer, make-up artist, make-up designer, hair stylist (or designer, whatever, I read ‘hair design’..), and also his own driver, while the other 14 drivers were listed all together. A curious thing: I read “second assistant to Jim Carrey” but I didn’t see a first assistant, how bizarre, I'm sure I'm missing something here..
Anyway, it’s not a critic, it’s probably normal in that world, it’s just a curiosity.
Just one question: what does a stand-in do? I read a stand-in name for Carrey and another one for Landau. What was those people’s role?
Adele-Laurie Holden
Doc-David Ogden Stiers
Lawyer Kevin-Ron Rifkin
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