Dumb and Dumber

Peter Farrelly’s first film as director follows two men driving a briefcase across the country to hand it back. The audience is told at the airport that it holds ransom money. Lloyd and Harry never work it out on the road, so the film runs on that gap, not on suspense. Peter Farrelly has said about fifteen percent of the picture was ad libbed: two takes as written, then the actors were turned loose. The bit about the most annoying sound in the world came out of that, and the astonishment on Jeff Daniels’ face is not acting. It sets the rhythm too, since scenes keep going after the joke has landed. Roughly a hundred actors turned Lloyd down, Steve Martin among them. Daniels was offered fifty thousand dollars against Carrey’s seven million, and his agents warned him it would finish his career. Carrey’s chipped tooth is real; he had the cap removed. Aspen is not Aspen either: Breckenridge stood in because it sits higher and was likelier to hold snow in late spring, and the Danbury Hotel is the Stanley in Estes Park. A good fit if you can take a two hour joke whose whole engine is that only the audience knows the truth. Not for anyone who wants gags weighed on the page and cut tight.