There's Something About Mary

There's Something About Mary
File:There's Something About Mary POSTER.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Farrelly Robert Farrelly
Produced by	Michael Steinberg Bradley Thomas Charles B. Wessler Frank Beddor
Screenplay by	Ed Decter John J. Strauss Peter Farrelly Robert Farrelly
Story by	Ed Decter John J. Strauss
Starring	Cameron Diaz Matt Dillon Ben Stiller Chris Elliott Lee Evans Lin Shaye W. Earl Brown
Narrated by	Jonathan Richman
Music by	Jonathan Richman
Cinematography	Mark Irwin
Edited by	Christopher Greenbury
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	July 17, 1998 (1998-07-17)
Running time	119 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$23 million
Box office	$369,884,651

There's Something About Mary is a 1998 comedy film, directed by the Farrelly brothers, Bobby and Peter. It stars Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller, and it is a combination of romantic comedy and gross-out film.

The film was placed 27th in the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Laughs: America's Funniest Movies, a list of the 100 funniest movies of the 20th century. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the fourth-greatest comedy film of all time. Diaz won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, an MTV Movie Award for Best Performance, an American Comedy Award for Best Actress, a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Actress. She also received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance.

Plot

In 1985, high school student Ted Stroehmann (Ben Stiller) lands a prom date with his dream girl Mary Jensen (Cameron Diaz), which is cancelled after a painful and embarrassing zipper accident. After the ordeal gains the attention of numerous members of the household and community, Ted is finally carted off to a hospital, subsequently losing contact with Mary.

Thirteen years later, Ted is still in love with Mary. On the advice of his best friend Dom (Chris Elliott), he hires a private detective named Pat Healy (Matt Dillon) to track her down. Healy finds that she is an orthopedic surgeon living in Miami with her friend, Magda, only to end up falling in love with the Mary as well. He lies to Ted about Mary, saying she is grossly overweight with multiple children, to discourage him from having any contact with her. Healy resorts to lying, cheating, stalking, and even drugging Magda's dog to win Mary over but is exposed by Mary's architect friend, Tucker (Lee Evans), who is heavily reliant on crutches and speaks with an English accent. Tucker, whose real name is revealed to be Norm, however, turns out to be a fraud himself, as he is an able-bodied, and entirely American citizen, pizza delivery boy who is also in love with Mary. Using slander, Tucker drives away potential rivals, including NFL quarterback Brett Favre.

Ted, aided by Dom, drives down to Florida to reconnect with Mary. Ted seems to have won Mary's love, until an anonymous letter exposes him being less than honest about his connection with Healy. While Ted confronts Healy and Tucker, Mary is confronted by Dom, who turns out to be her former boyfriend Woogie, who "got weird on her" back in high school, stealing all her shoes. Having found out that Tucker also lied about Brett Favre, Ted decides that Mary should be with Brett (who was the only one of the suitors who did not resort to deceit to win Mary). After reuniting Brett and Mary, Ted leaves tearfully until Mary chases after Ted, saying that she would be happiest with him.

The film concludes with the two engaging in a kiss while a guitarist (Jonathan Richman), who periodically narrated the story in song throughout the film, is accidentally shot by Magda's boyfriend, who was trying to shoot Ted so he could win over Mary.

Cast

• Cameron Diaz as Mary Jensen/Matthews
• Ben Stiller as Ted Stroehmann
• Matt Dillon as Pat Healy
• Chris Elliott as Dom "Woogie" Woganowski
• Lee Evans as Tucker/Norm Phipps
• Lin Shaye as Magda
• Jeffrey Tambor as Sully
• Markie Post as Sheila Jensen, Mary's mother
• Keith David as Charlie, Mary's stepfather
• W. Earl Brown as Warren Jensen, Mary's mentally disabled brother
• Sarah Silverman as Brenda, Mary's sarcastic and obnoxious best friend
• Khandi Alexander as Joanie
• Willie Garson as Dr. Zit Face/high school pal Bob
• Brett Favre as himself. The role was originally written-for and offered to NFL quarterback Steve Young, but he turned the role down due to the film's coarse nature and was replaced with Favre.
• Richard Tyson as Detective Krevoy
• Rob Moran as Detective Stabler
• Jonathan Richman as the singing narrator
• Harland Williams (uncredited) as Hitchhiker
• Richard Jenkins (uncredited) as Psychiatrist

Bill Murray was considered for the role of Pat Healy, but the Farrelly brothers thought he was too old for the part.

Production

The movie was filmed in Miami, Florida. The makeup effects and animatronic animal effects were the handiwork of Makeup Effects Designer Tony Gardner and Alterian, Inc.

Reception

This sleeper hit was the highest-grossing comedy of 1998 in North America as well as the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. It also catapulted Diaz and Stiller into the limelight. The film made $369 million worldwide, including $176 million in the U.S. alone.

The film was generally critically acclaimed. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 83% based on 83 reviews, and an average rating of 7/10, with the consensus: "There's Something About Mary proves that unrelentingly, unabashedly puerile humor doesn't necessarily come at the expense of a film's heart." Metacritic gives the film a score of 69 out of 100 based on reviews from 29 critics.

Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, stating "What a blessed relief is laughter. It flies in the face of manners, values, political correctness and decorum. It exposes us for what we are, the only animal with a sense of humor."

Gene Siskel ranked the film No.9 on his 10 Best films of 1998 (the final "best of" list he did before passing away).

Soundtrack

1. "There's Something About Mary" (Jonathan Richman) – 1:47
2. "How to Survive a Broken Heart" (Ben Lee) – 2:47
3. "Every Day Should Be a Holiday" (The Dandy Warhols) – 4:02
4. "Everything Shines" (The Push Stars) – 2:27
5. "This Is the Day" (Ivy) – 3:33
6. "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" (Joe Jackson) – 3:36
7. "True Love Is Not Nice" (Jonathan Richman) – 2:13
8. "History Repeating" (The Propellerheads feat. Shirley Bassey) – 4:04
9. "If I Could Talk I'd Tell You" (The Lemonheads) – 2:51
10. "Mary's Prayer" (Danny Wilson) – 3:54
11. "Margo's Waltz" (Lloyd Cole) – 4:01
12. "Speed Queen" (Zuba) – 3:44
13. "Let Her Go Into the Darkness" (Jonathan Richman) – 1:19
14. "Build Me Up Buttercup" (The Foundations) – 2:59

External links

• There's Something About Mary at IMDb
• There's Something About Mary at the TCM Movie Database
• There's Something About Mary at AllMovie
• There's Something About Mary at Box Office Mojo
• There's Something About Mary at Rotten Tomatoes
• There's Something About Mary at Metacritic