Dumb and Dumber; Soup du Jour

So you're telling me there's a chance

Dumb and Dumber (1994)

Director: Peter and Bobby Farrelly

Had I seen this before: Yes

Did I recognize the “famous quote” in the ad: Yes

Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s discuss another coterie of man-children who are creating most of their own problems and wreaking havoc on everyone around them, this one set in the Year of Our Lord 1994 (as evidenced by the abundance of brown-toned lipsticks and Blossom hats). I know I sound a little cranky about this, but don’t worry—we have a change of pace on the horizon, a set of men who are ruining their own lives and the lives of everyone around them in more serious and interesting ways. That’s American cinema, baby!

Lloyd (Jim Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels) are roommates and also dumb losers. That’s not my commentary, that’s a straightforward textual read. It’s right there on the label. (If you want to know which character is Dumb and which character is Dumber, I would have to argue that Harry’s bare-minimum literacy puts him ahead of Lloyd, but I am willing to entertain arguments in the other direction.) To be clear, I don’t actually think being dumb is something they have any control over, but they are also pretty obnoxious and low-key cruel at times, traits which do seem optional. Lloyd is a limo driver and Harry has a mobile pet grooming van. In the early parts of the movie I would say that much of their dumbness is conveyed by unflattering haircuts and terrible driving skills. I happen to live in a city with a lot of people who drive like Lloyd every single day so I wouldn’t say anything in the opening scenes registered as too far-fetched for me.

Lloyd drives a pretty woman named Mary (Lauren Holly) to the airport and falls madly in love with her. When he notices that she has left her briefcase on the airport floor, he chivalrously swoops in to grab it for her but is unable to catch up before her plane takes off. What he doesn’t realize is that the briefcase was a ransom drop, and now the two thugs who were meant to pick it up are on his tail. This is when the movie shifts into the gear of Hitchcock, but with morons. I do want to say that picking up an item out of concern that someone accidentally left it behind is not a particularly dumb thing to do, so if you think about it, a lot of this plot could have happened to any of us who lived in an era of lax airport security.

The duo set out to return the briefcase to Mary in Aspen, which they can neither spell nor locate in the correct state. Most of the film is just roadtrip hijinks, with the bad guys interpreting their cluelessness as a sort of genius game-playing. There are a lot of situations that involve bathrooms or not having a bathroom when you need one. A lot of them. I found quite a few of the gags in this movie funny, but I just genuinely don’t spend that much time thinking about how amusing urine is. Or Harland Williams, for that matter. YMMV!

They finally arrive in Aspen, having inadvertently killed one of the bad guys via prank (obnoxious and low-key cruel, what’s up) and Harry immediately betrays Lloyd by spending the day with Mary and leaving him thinking he had been stood up. Lloyd retaliates by dosing Harry with (what seems like it might be a fatal dose of) laxative before he meets up with her again. This leads to a very well-known scene wherein Jeff Daniels has a bout of diarrhea so powerful that his eyes cross. “This was the number one movie in America,” I told my 14-year-old at that point. “Huge hit.” (Then, later, after having read the IMDb trivia, “Apparently Clint Eastwood told Jeff Daniels that situation happened to him on a date once. Wait, do you know who Clint Eastwood is?”) What neither men realize is that neither of them are on the verge of winning Mary’s heart, as the ransom she attempted to deliver was to free her husband. They are then reunited with help from the FBI, and it’s a happy ending for Mary.

And, not to worry, a dumb ending for Lloyd and Harry, as they talk themselves out of a job oiling up a bus full of swimsuit models. Twice. As for whether this movie still resonates with the high school freshmen of today, mine assessed it as “some pretty good bits, very gross at parts.” Agreed!

The Regal Ad

The outfit:

Well, well, well. Look who we have here. It’s the actor who is dressed for The Hangover line, not the Dumb and Dumber line. F

The line: Lloyd asks Mary to be straight with him about whether they have a chance of ending up together and rather than be disappointed when she clarifies that it is one in a million, he is jubilant because one in a million is not zero. It’s a funny line, and I think a pretty recognizable one. B+

The context: Every time I heard this line uttered in the context of this ad I fully embodied an overused meme. NO. NO. AAAUUUUUUGH. What are you talking about? No one anywhere has told you that there’s a chance, no one. You were just told “no” directly. What you’re saying makes no sense and also causes a possibly-overblown but inarguably-incandescent rage to bubble up inside of me. ALSO THERE ARE NO EMPTY SEATS THERE, I HATE THIS AD SO MUCH. F-

Broccoli Cheese Soup from Give Me Some Oven

Lloyd and Harry mostly eat diner burgers and fries, except in this most Airplane-esque of exchanges:

“What is the soup du jour?”

“It’s the soup of the day.”

“That sounds good. I’ll have that.”

Up next: “I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart.” (Probably in uhhhh two or three weeks.)