This is another version of The Return of Martin Guerre, and after several remakes and transpositions of the story, I'd still point people back to the original as being superior. The main problem with this one is that it insists on a Hollywood-style bookending, complete with a voice over narration to establish the character in the first person (which is then dropped for the rest of the movie), and a faux-Capra-esque set speech at the end which is inexplicably cheered by the masses attending the House Unamerican Activities Committee hearing, not even to mention by the denizens of the idealized yet somehow oddly liberal small California town in which the middle part of the picture takes place.
The real fatal flaw of the film, on top of the anti-McCarthyism preachiness, is that unlike Martin Guerre, it shows its hand from the the beginning. We, the audience, know that Peter is a fake and is not really returned-from-the-dead war hero Luke (no spoilers here, since the film gives it all away). So the creepiness and the mystery of the original schtick are all lost. And the movie really overdoes it with presenting the dead Luke as this great guy, without any baggage, and without any nuance. As such the dead Luke becomes a cartoon character, echoing the inexplicable character transformation of Peter in the end when he has his confrontation with HUAC over alleged past associations with known communists.
It's a strange thing to say, but this movie could have been saved in the editing room without changing the script (again, ironic, since the screenwriter's willingness, or lack thereof, to change his script in order to get along is the bookend device of the movie). Had the director simply chosen to take the whole prologue, and just start the movie with "Luke" waking up mysteriously in the town of Lawson, (and then, if you must, have him recover his memory later and show the prologue instead as a flashback), it would have made a more convincing movie.
Jim Carrey's ability to carry a dramatic role has always been underrated, and he does what he can with the material here, and nearly pulls it off. But it's just too fluffy a script for such a heavy subject -- the sacrifices of making war, and the principles to be defended by war -- no matter what the talents of the actor are.
The whole middle part of the story about re-opening the Majestic theater, as a metaphor for renewal following a great loss, also was a bit of a missed opportunity. I appreciate how the filmmaker subtly chose two movies from 1951 that represent opposite ends of the reaction to the Hollywood witch hunt -- "Streetcar Named Desire" which was an outstanding film that Director Elia Kazan could only make because he was willing to name names, and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" which was scathing criticism of the paranoia of the era framed as a Science Fiction parable. But at the same time the idea of the movies as a way of living, vicariously, issues which we're not able to deal with directly because they're too painful or raw, is left undeveloped.
I will note the especially good performance by Martin Landau as the long-lost-Luke's father, and a subtle performance by David Ogden Stiers as the town doctor and Luke's putative father-in-law. In the former, you see the pain of having lost an only son, and it's a very nuanced performance that shows how the desperate grief could lead one to a case of mistaken identity. In the latter, Stiers shows skepticism appropriate to the oddness situation that the rest of the townsfolk choose to ignore, but without recrimination when Peter is shown to be a fraud. And finally, the late great James Whitmore is quite good as the elderly resident who finds Luke.
The real fatal flaw of the film, on top of the anti-McCarthyism preachiness, is that unlike Martin Guerre, it shows its hand from the the beginning. We, the audience, know that Peter is a fake and is not really returned-from-the-dead war hero Luke (no spoilers here, since the film gives it all away). So the creepiness and the mystery of the original schtick are all lost. And the movie really overdoes it with presenting the dead Luke as this great guy, without any baggage, and without any nuance. As such the dead Luke becomes a cartoon character, echoing the inexplicable character transformation of Peter in the end when he has his confrontation with HUAC over alleged past associations with known communists.
It's a strange thing to say, but this movie could have been saved in the editing room without changing the script (again, ironic, since the screenwriter's willingness, or lack thereof, to change his script in order to get along is the bookend device of the movie). Had the director simply chosen to take the whole prologue, and just start the movie with "Luke" waking up mysteriously in the town of Lawson, (and then, if you must, have him recover his memory later and show the prologue instead as a flashback), it would have made a more convincing movie.
Jim Carrey's ability to carry a dramatic role has always been underrated, and he does what he can with the material here, and nearly pulls it off. But it's just too fluffy a script for such a heavy subject -- the sacrifices of making war, and the principles to be defended by war -- no matter what the talents of the actor are.
The whole middle part of the story about re-opening the Majestic theater, as a metaphor for renewal following a great loss, also was a bit of a missed opportunity. I appreciate how the filmmaker subtly chose two movies from 1951 that represent opposite ends of the reaction to the Hollywood witch hunt -- "Streetcar Named Desire" which was an outstanding film that Director Elia Kazan could only make because he was willing to name names, and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" which was scathing criticism of the paranoia of the era framed as a Science Fiction parable. But at the same time the idea of the movies as a way of living, vicariously, issues which we're not able to deal with directly because they're too painful or raw, is left undeveloped.
I will note the especially good performance by Martin Landau as the long-lost-Luke's father, and a subtle performance by David Ogden Stiers as the town doctor and Luke's putative father-in-law. In the former, you see the pain of having lost an only son, and it's a very nuanced performance that shows how the desperate grief could lead one to a case of mistaken identity. In the latter, Stiers shows skepticism appropriate to the oddness situation that the rest of the townsfolk choose to ignore, but without recrimination when Peter is shown to be a fraud. And finally, the late great James Whitmore is quite good as the elderly resident who finds Luke.