There’s Something About Mary (1998)

Starring: Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon, Chris Elliott, Lee Evans, Lin Shaye, Jeffrey Tambor, Keith David, Markie Post, Harland Williams, Sarah Silverman, Richard Jenkins, and Brett Favre
Grade: Classic

There’s Something About Mary is solely the reason why The Foundations’s “Build Me Up Buttercup” is one of the greatest songs ever. Nothing will put a smile on your face quite like the credits sequence.

Summary

Back in Cumberland, Rhode Island in 1985, a 16-year-old Ted Stroehmann (Stiller) fell in love. Before school starts, he approaches Renise (Cindy Oliver) and shyly asks her to the prom. She’s still waiting for some guy she heard might ask her, so she lets Ted know that if everything else falls apart, it’s a maybe. Ted accepts this and hangs out by Bob (Willie Garson) and his friends. They see the popular Mary (Diaz) ride her bike in, and they all wonder who she’s going with. Mary moved into their town two years ago from Minnesota. They she’s dating some guy named “Woogie”, a bigger guy from Barrington High School. Ted comments that he sounds like a loser, but Bob explains he’s the exact opposite. Woogie is all-state in football and basketball, and he’s the valedictorian. One of the guys even heard he has a scholarship to Princeton, but he’s going to Europe first to model. Bob says he was thinking about doing the same. Just then, Mary’s intellectually disabled brother Warren (W. Earl Brown) walks around and asks all the students outside if they have seen his baseball. A couple of kids mess with him and say the girl nearby knows, but they trick Warren and tell him that she refers to it as a “wiener”. So, Warren goes to the girl and asks her if she’s seen his wiener, prompting her boyfriend to shove Warren to the ground. Ted intervenes to try and explain to the guy that Warren isn’t all there, but the guy shoves Ted to the ground too. Bob and all the other students circle them expecting a fight, but Mary gets in-between everyone to stop it. She explains that Warren is her brother, and the guy calms down because he knows Mary. Once he leaves, Mary thanks Ted for stepping in, but Ted is just elated that she knew his name. Some of his best friends didn’t know his name. On the way home from school, Ted walks with Mary and Warren, and she goes on about how Joe Montana is the most underrated quarterback in the league, despite him winning two Super Bowls by 1985.

Nevertheless, they walk and talk and Warren interrupts because he wants to give Ted a piggyback ride. Ted plays along. Right after, Warren wants Ted to return the favor. Ted hurts his back while trying to do it but fights through the pain because he’s trying to impress Mary. They get to Mary’s house, and Warren runs inside. She then brings up prom to Ted and surprisingly asks him to go with her. Showcasing his braces with his smile, Ted happily accepts. From then on, his friends looked at him in a different light (“You’re a fucking liar”). Bob questions him over the whole thing and brings up Woogie, but Ted explains that Mary broke up with him since he was getting weird on her. Bob bets $20 he’s full of shit, so Ted makes it $100. Bob is down and his other friends get it on the bet too.

On the day of the prom, Ted heads over to pick up Mary. Her stepfather Charlie (David) answers the door aggressively and tells him that Mary left 20 minutes ago with her boyfriend Woogie. Just as Ted sadly turns to leave, Charlie reveals he was joking and Mary’s mother Sheila (Post) pops in to jokingly call Charlie out for being so mean. Upon entering, Ted greets Warren, but he doesn’t notice Ted because he’s playing with a Rubik’s Cube and watching MTV. Mary comes down in her dress, and they awkwardly complement each other. To try and impress the family, Ted brings a baseball as a gift to Warren and walks over to him. He acts as if it’s magically behind his ear, but he doesn’t know that Warren is extremely sensitive about his ears. Because of this, Warren flips and beats up Ted until they are able to separate the two. As they give Warren his earmuffs to put back on, Charlie yells at Ted for the whole thing while Ted explains that he was just trying to give Warren a gift. This is when Mary reveals to Ted that Warren has a sensitivity about his ears. Once everything settles down, Mary realizes one of the straps on her dress broke, so she goes upstairs to fix it, with Sheila following to help. Ted goes to the bathroom to clean up. While he’s taking a piss, he glances out the open window and watches a couple of birds. Once the birds fly away however, it looks like his line of sight is aimed at Mary’s room while she’s in her underwear getting her dress fixed by Sheila. They make eye contact with Ted and freak out and Ted panics because it wasn’t what it looked like. He tries to zip up quickly but gets his scrotum caught in the zipper. A half hour later, Ted is still in the bathroom, and the family waits outside the door because they’re worried about him. Sheila thinks he’s masturbating due to the whole dress fiasco, but Mary and Charlie don’t want to hear it. Even so, Sheila suggests Charlie go in there because he might need some male help. He goes in and a reluctant Ted shows him the problem. Naturally, Charlie freaks out.

He brings in Sheila, telling her that she has to see this. She freaks out too while they discuss the situation at hand. All three try to come up with solutions until a police officer comes by the open window because they got a call that a lady screamed. So, Charlie points to Ted being the culprit. Charlie turns Ted to the cop, and he can’t believe it either, asking how he managed to get the zipper all the way to the top. Sheila sprays a disinfectant on Ted and he yelps in pain. Next, the fireman enters the bathroom, and the cop turns Ted to show him what Ted did. He starts laughing and calls on his walkie-talkie for the other firemen to come in the house to see what Ted did. Ted suggests he just put his shirt over it so he can still go to the prom, but the cop takes charge. Going with the “pulling off the band-aid” method, he pulls and rips the pants aggressively with one swift motion. Unfortunately, it causes serious bleeding, and he’s rushed on a stretcher into an ambulance. As the neighborhood gathers to see what’s happening, Warren yells aloud that Ted was masturbating and Charlie comments that none of this ever happened to Woogie. On top of this, the paramedics drop the stretcher accidentally, and Ted hits the ground before being picked up and loaded into the ambulance.

Because of this, Ted missed the prom and never got to go out with Mary.

In Providence, Rhode Island in 1998, a now adult Ted is detailing all of this to his therapist (Jenkins), though the therapist isn’t in the room, which Ted doesn’t know because he’s facing the other side of the room. Ted says school ended a couple of days later, and Charlie got transferred to Florida that July and took the family. As Ted talks about how he worked all summer to pay off debts and he never saw Mary again, the therapist quietly returns from the dentist. He opens the door as silently as possible and sits down. Ted mentions how this was 13 years ago, but he must have blocked it out of his head or something because he was driving down the highway last week and suddenly started thinking about Mary. All of a sudden, he couldn’t breathe and felt like he was going to die. As the uninterested therapist looks at his watch and doesn’t pay attention, Ted reveals that he had to pull over at a rest area. This is the only part that gets the therapist’s attention, as he points out that rest areas are homosexual hangouts or bath houses of the 90s for many gay men. Confused, Ted asks what he’s implying, but the therapist says time is up and they will delve into it next week. After this, Ted plays golf with his closest friend Dom (Elliot). Hearing how the therapist called Ted gay, Dom does point out how he’s a writer, which would classify him as an artist, joking that most artists tend to swing that way. Dom jokingly asks Ted that when he smokes a cigar, if he pretends it has balls. Ted jokes that he has, and they share a laugh. Moving on, Dom says he’s going to set him up with his new assistant, but Ted isn’t sure. He does know he’s in a slump. As he talks about feeling like a loser, a bird shits on his head. Even so, Dom doesn’t buy this “loser” attitude. He reminds Ted about when his kidneys failed five years ago. If he was a loser, would they have found a donor with a tissue match so quickly? He sure doesn’t think so, as the odds are so small for such a thing.

Ted questions if he’s saying Ted is lucky his brother Jimmy died in an explosion, but Dom isn’t saying that. He’s just saying those kids are lucky they found his kidneys. Dom takes it a step further, adding that Jimmy never gave a shit about him anyway.

He calls Ted out for being a pessimist and insists he actually has a guardian angel on his side. They go back to Dom’s house and hang out in the backyard. Dom’s wife (Hillary Matthews) gives Dom a cigar, but Ted doesn’t want one. Dom asks if he wants a cookie or something, but he declines. Even so, Dom sends his wife in to bake some for them. Dom insists it’s no problem because she loves this type of thing. Ted is happy to hear this because he wants the family life like Dom. With this, Dom asks if Ted has ever been in love. Ted admits it was only one time, and it was Mary. Dom has heard this story before and rolls his eyes. Ted admits it was a brief moment in his life, but he knows it was love. Crushes don’t last for 13 years, right? He reminds Dom that she moved with her family to Miami, so Dom questions why he hasn’t looked her up. Apparently, Ted did once. He called, but she wasn’t listed. Dom doesn’t get why he gave up after one bump in the road, but Ted knows he will look like a stalker. Dom suggests Ted hire a private investigator to find her and follow her around because she won’t know a thing, though Ted argues that it’s too creepy. Plus, she’s probably married with a couple of kids by now. Girls like Mary don’t stay single. Still on the idea, Dom brings up how there’s a claims investigator in his office named Pat Healy (Dillon). He even goes to Miami every couple of weeks and could help Ted out. Later, Ted meets with Healy in Healy’s office. Healy isn’t buying Ted’s simple story. Standing up to show that his pants are unbuckled, he closes the door, buckles up his pants, and asks Ted about the real details. He questions if Ted knocked up Mary, she’s blackmailing him, or if he wants her dead. Ted laughs off these accusations. Healy refuses to believe this is a regular stalker case, but Ted assurers him that he’s not a stalker. When he says he’s a friend, Healy laughs this off, pointing out how she has an unlisted number and Ted hasn’t heard anything from her in 13 years. Ted is offended and goes to leave, prompting Healy to say he will take the case. However, he does say that if she winds up dead, he will snitch on Ted.

Healy heads out to Miami, Florida. There, his friend and police officer Sully (Tambor) picks him up with his dog, who does bite a little for the record. Sully hands over the information about Mary to him. He asks Healy if she scammed him out of some insurance money, but Healy explains how Ted paid him to track down his high school girlfriend. They both agree that he’s a stalker. As they get to Sully’s apartment, he talks about all the pussy in Miami and how he’s not getting any. Healy sees the inside of his apartment and compliments him. Since Sully overcame his addiction problems, he’s done well for himself at work. Even so, Healy suggests they go out for some beers before Sully has to go to work. Sully insists he doesn’t drink anymore. Healy sits down and sees a giant anaconda on the couch, but Sully reveals it’s his pet. His name is Bill. Sully tells Healy to not worry because he fed Bill last week. After he tells Healy that Bill nips rather than bites, Sully states that he’s been clean for 19 months. Healy says he’s proud of him and offers a beer to celebrate. After all, Sully was never an alcoholic. He was merely a cokehead. However, Sully explains that when you quit one, you have to quit both. Healy doesn’t agree with this at all and offers one lite beer from his six-pack. He pressures Sully and says he’s worried about him, adding that he has to learn to bend a little bit. Otherwise, he’s going to break. Seeing that Sully is starting to consider it, Healy comments, “You gotta learn to have a pop once in a while, or you’re gonna fall off the wagon”. Sully takes a sip but realizes it doesn’t taste good to him anymore. Healy calls him a pussy and finishes the beer for him. Later, Healy stakes out Mary’s place and spots her cleaning the house in her underwear. She puts on a robe and sits on the balcony with her neighbor and friend Magda (Shaye), who is obsessed with suntanning. Magda was outside all night and day on account of being a part of the neighborhood watch. Mary knows Magda is just listening to strangers’ telephone conversations on her walkie-talkies, though she argues that it only picks up cellphones in a half-a-mile radius.

To her, these are the people they live amongst, so they have a right to know if they’re creeps.

Giving Mary an example, Magda brings up how the guy down the street is cheating on his wife. She’s not surprised either because her dog Puffy would bark anytime the guy was around, and Puffy only barks at bad people. Healy has the place bugged by the way, so he’s hearing all of this. Even so, Mary tells Magda to get some sleep, as Mary plans on golfing and hanging out with Warren later. She also comments to not drink too early in the morning because she smells like a gin mill. After Mary leaves, Magda breathes on Puffy to test it, and Puffy even reacts to her breath. Following this, Mary heads out for the day. Still as popular and nice as she was in high school, she greets a neighbor, hands an apple to Herb who’s sitting by his boat, and she is all smiles as she starts her day. She heads out to the golf range and Healy follows. As she hits some balls and greets Mrs. Bailey, Healy continues to observe. Next, she orders a bunch of burgers from a fast-food place, gives some guy the sports section in her newspaper, and heads out to a charity event for the intellectually disabled, handing out the burgers to everyone. They all love Mary and greet her, as does Warren. After this, Mary hangs out with her friends Brenda (Silverman), Joanie (Khandi Alexander), and Lisa (Marnie Alexenberg) at a restaurant. They make fun of these ads women put out for the specific men they are looking for. As they laugh, Mary says what she wants. She wants a guy who can play 36 holes and still have enough energy to take her and Warren to a baseball game and eat hot dogs. She wants beer too, not the lite stuff. Brenda jokingly asks she’s going to find a gem like that, and they all laugh. Mary brings up her catch though. She wants her man to be self-employed, like an architect or something. She wants someone with freedom in their job too. Someone who can do it anywhere and leave at the drop of a hat. They question where Mary and her hypothetical architect would go, and she suggests the Super Bowl or Nepal. During all of this, Healy is at a nearby table listening in.

Mary’s friends reveal to her that this is all fleeting because she is known to change her mind a lot. Mary doesn’t see it, but Joanie brings up her last boyfriend, Brett. He seemed perfect, so they wonder what happened. Mary reveals that her friend Tucker (Evans) told her what Brett said in private to him. Apparently, Brett said that if Warren wasn’t in Mary’s life, he would have proposed to her long before. The girls totally understand now. Mary jokes that she’s fine anyway because she has a vibrator. They all laugh, and Healy can’t help but laugh too. They hear his laughing and get jokingly embarrassed. That night, Healy continues his stakeout and calls Sully. Sully is completely messed up on cocaine, having relapsed after the beer Healy pressured him with. As he thanks Healy because he hasn’t even wanted a beer, he snorts coke off a shelf from his fridge while lying up against the open fridge door. Bypassing this, Healy tells him he will have his car back to him in a couple of hours because he’s still staking the place out. Just then, Mary makes it back home, gives a burger to Herb and kisses him on the cheek, and heads inside. She watches some sports highlights and begins to change for bed. Knowing this, Healy pulls out the big binoculars. When he switches between binoculars however, he ends up looking through the wrong window and finds Magda undressing instead and is startled. Once he directs his binoculars back to Mary’s window, she’s already put on her shirt to go to bed, disappointing him. Healy goes back to Rhode Island to tell Ted the good news, at least a version of it. He reveals he found Mary, but the lies begin during their meetup. Not only does he say she’s fat now (“I’d say about a deuce, deuce and a half. Not bad!”), he tells Ted that she has four kids between three different guys but has never been married, referring to the latter as the “good news”. On top of that, he says Mary has trouble keeping up with the kids because she’s in a wheelchair and doubles down. He even says that he got the information from her bookie and how Mary is a real spark plug.

As Ted begins to leave, Healy asks if he wants the name of the housing project she lives in. Ted just looks back at him and leaves.

That night, Ted turns off the TV while in bed and looks at a picture of Mary from high school, pondering. The next day, he goes to Healy’s office only to find that Healy just quit his job and is moving to Miami. Holding a box full of his stuff, Healy lies and tells Ted that he took a job offer with Rice-a-Roni. Ted thought they were based out of San Francisco, but Healy replies that they are changing their image. Moving on, Ted lets Healy know that he still wants to look Mary up, despite what he said (“Roller pig? Are you nuts?”). Ted remembers Healy calling her a real spark plug, but he corrects Ted and says, “butt plug”, adding that she’s heinous. Once the two get outside, Ted says he still wants to call her. Maybe, he can help her or something. He notes how she’s apparently in a wheelchair, so Healy lessens his lie by saying it’s only a bunion and it will heal. Even so, Ted wants to contact her because he still has feelings for her. Healy can see Mary means a lot to Ted, so he assures him that he will get Mary’s number as soon as she gets back from Japan. Confused, Ted asks why she’s going to Japan. Healy tells Ted that she’s a mail-order bride. Ted can’t believe this (“What are they, desperate? She’s a whale!”). Healy chalks it up to sumo culture and how they pay by the pound out there, likening it to tuna. Ted points out how Healy said she was single, but Healy says he had his window. He just blew it. At the bar, Dom tries to cheer up Ted by arguing that he should feel liberated. He was in therapy thinking he blew it with the greatest girl ever, but it turned out that getting his dick stuck in his zipper was the best thing that ever happened to him. Ted never told him about that particular incident, so he’s surprised, but Dom jokes that he was only four towns away. Ted decides to call it a night because he has to help his boss’s brother move into his apartment at 6AM. He’s never even met the guy. Hearing this, Dom reminds him to finish his novel, so he can quit the magazine.

Meanwhile, Healy is in Miami, and he sets up an “accidental encounter” with Mary at the golfing range.

Healy gets a spot next to Mary and tries some light flirting. She responds but doesn’t really get into it. He excuses himself to buy a drink but asks if she has change for a dollar because “all I got are these damn Nepalese coins”. Remembering what she said earlier, she immediately becomes intrigued and asks if he’s been to Nepal. Healy replies that he hasn’t been there in months, adding that he’s not even sure why he bought a place out there. In the parking lot, Mary sees Healy and says it was nice to meet him, and he reciprocates. She asks for his name. Once he comments his, he plays it cool and doesn’t ask for hers. When she questions why, he points out how he already knows its Mary because he sees it on her golf bag. Healy opens his car door, and several wrapped-up blueprints fall out on cue. She asks about them, and Healy states they are for projects he’s working on like museums and hospitals for kids, acknowledging that he’s an architect. When she tries to ask for details, he walks around and it comments how his real passion is his hobby. With this, Healy confidently tells her that this hobby is, “I work with retards”. Offended, she questions if this is politically incorrect to which Healy replies, “Well, to hell with that. No one’s gonna tell me who I can and can’t work with, right?”. She tries to explain what she means, but Healy goes on about this kid named Mongo. He says Mongo has “a forehead like a drive-in movie theater, but he’s a good shit, so we don’t bust his chops too much”. He continues by telling this anecdote about Mongo getting out of his cage one day, and Mary is in shock. Healy explains that it’s more of an enclosure, but Mary still can’t believe they keep him confined. She calls it bullshit, so Healy reads the situation and agrees with her (“Well, that’s what I said!”). Healy then says he got Mongo a leash, one you could hook to clothesline so the person can run back and forth. He argues that it gives Mongo enough room to dig and play, and he’s blossomed enough for Healy to take him to the movies and baseball games.

He tells Mary, “Those goofy bastards are just about the best thing I’ve got going in this crazy world”.

Back in Rhode Island, Ted helps his boss’s brother move into his new place. Unfortunately, the guy is in a wheelchair, so Ted is stuck doing all the work. It doesn’t help that the guy is an asshole on top of that. After he leaves to get some coffee and Ted has an armoire on his back that he struggles to bring up some steps, news reporter Steve Tyler (himself) of The Troubleshooters pulls up and tries to interview Ted in the middle of this. With the cameraman recording, Tyler brings up how Ted is parked in a handicapped zone. Ted tries to explain how the guy he’s with is handicapped. Tyler thinks he’s lying, and Ted tries getting away from him. This lands him at the chiropractic office where Bob now works. As Bob works on Ted’s back, Ted asks if he remembers Mary. Bob does and actually saw her at a convention in Las Vegas a couple of months ago. Ted is confused as to why they would be at the same convention, so Bob reveals she’s an orthopedic surgeon. He admits she’s still a fox too. Finally, Ted realizes Healy was lying to him. After this, Ted goes straight to Dom at his office. Dom is in a meeting, and one of the lawyer questions if the family doesn’t want a class action lawsuit. Standing next to a dry erase board stating “BUS CRASH – 12 Kids Killed. – What does this cost us?”, Dom groans because this is what he was trying to say earlier. Just then, Ted goes to the window of the meeting, knocks, and says aloud, “Mary’s a fox!”. Confused, Dom ends the meeting while Ted enters to talk to him. Ted lets Dom know what he found out. Dom brings up Healy, but Ted is convinced that Healy never even looked her up because he was trying to close the deal with the Rice-a-Roni people the whole time. Just then, Ted notices a hive beginning to grow onto Dom’s head, and he just says he gets it from stress at work. Changing the subject, Dom says he feels like shit because he set him up with Healy, so he says Ted should call Mary. However, Ted isn’t going to call her. He’s going to Miami to see her.

Meanwhile, Mary is getting ready for her date with Healy and she’s telling Magda all about him. She admits he’s a mook and a shlep, so Magda questions why she’s going out with him. While this is going on, Healy is listening in on the entire conversation since he still has her house bugged. Mary likens herself and Healy to Harold and Maude, a movie she considers the greatest love story of our time. She says the point is that love isn’t about money, social standings, or age. It’s about two people having a connection and having something in common, kindred spirits.

Magda isn’t buying it. She thinks her dog Puffy will tell Mary everything she needs to know about the man in two seconds. If Puffy starts yapping, he’s a loser. If he likes him, then Mary has a keeper. Healy hears all of this, so he drugs a dog treat and puts it through the mail slot for Puffy to eat. Later that night, Healy is inside the apartment and holding the dog. Since Puffy is not barking or anything, Mary and Magda are amazed. Magda assumes he’s an animal lover, which he confirms. He adds that when he was in Nepal, the villagers there called him “Kin ton ti”, which means “noble man who is loved by many animal… who, in kind, he loveth too”. They are swooning. Magda offers tea, but he turns it down in favor of a beer. Mary asks Magda to help her in the kitchen. Before Magda follows, she looks at Healy and lovingly states, “Kin ton ti”. While they are in the kitchen, Healy notices that Puffer has completely passed out and he’s beginning to freak out. At the same time, Mary and Magda are asking him what he wants from the kitchen, and he throws random responses out because he’s dealing with the dog. Magda offers clam dip, but he prefers a Bundt cake. Mary asks if he wants a Budweiser or a Heineken, and he says whatever, as he’s administering CPR to the dog. Mary pulls out a Bud Light from the fridge but hears Healy yell “Stay away from the light”. She assumes he’s talking about lite beer, so she puts it back in the fridge. In reality, he’s yelling it at Puffy. He rips out the wire from the lamp and jumpstarts Puffy, accidentally setting him on fire. Right after, he grabs the vase and dumps water on Puffy to put him out. Thankfully, this brings Puffy back to life. By the time Mary and Magda come back into the room, Healy has Puffy wrapped up in a blanket, and they don’t notice a thing. Healy just says Puffy was chilly.

Mary and Healy go out for their date, but she has a surprise for him. Before they go to dinner, she takes him to the museum for the architecture exhibit. Healy panics and says he should eat something first, but she insists it will only take 20 minutes. Plus, she wants him to meet her friend Tucker, a fellow architect. Upon getting in, Mary shows her fascination with architecture and asks Healy if a certain display is considered to be art deco or art nouveau. Without giving any reasoning, he just says it’s deco. She goes to the next display, asking if it’s a vestibule or a portico and how to tell the difference. Healy tells her to try and visualize the buildings as a whole when you’re looking at architecture and to see them in their natural state, “Their totalitarianism, so to speak”. She’s confused, but she spots Tucker and brings him over to introduce the two. Establishing how they’re both architects, Tucker starts questioning Healy. Healy lies and says he got his degree in Boston at Harvard. Tucker assumes he must have studied under Kim Green if so to which Healy replies, “Well, among others”. After Mary details how Healy has worked all over the world, Tucker asks where he may have seen his work. Assuming he’d be safe, Healy slyly asks if Tucker has ever been to Santiago, Chile. Shockingly, Tucker says he was there twice last year and asks which building was his. Nearly getting caught, Healy pivots to ask if he’s familiar with the soccer stadium, prompting Tucker to wonder if he built the Estadio Olimpico. Healy replies that he actually built the “Celinto Catayente Towers” down the street. Tucker asks for his card. Healy feels his pockets for one but then acts like he sees somebody and excuses himself. Mary says goodbye to Tucker and follows Healy. Keeping the lie up, Healy approaches some random guy and refers to him as “Earl Stein”. The guy corrects him and says his name is “Brian Mone”. Healy acts like the guy is lying and goes along with it, telling Mary in private that he’s got loads of weird stories about him.

Nevertheless, the journey has begun for Ted, and he’s driving all the way to Miami to rekindle something with Mary. The speed bumps he will encounter along the way, and when he finally reaches her, however, is nothing like he ever could have planned for.

My Thoughts:

A classic in every sense of the word, there are no notes for There’s Something About Mary. Perfectly cast, outrageously funny, and unexpectedly heartfelt, the Farrelly Brothers put together a flawless comedic masterpiece and one of the best movies of the 1990s.

If we’re being honest, very few comedies in existence can have an audience on the floor laughing throughout its runtime. It’s difficult to do, especially when trying to tell a great story at the same time, which should always be the goal. The key is the balance, as you never want to sacrifice certain storytelling elements or character depth just to squeeze out a joke or too. This is also crucial to making a romantic comedy that is more than just a “flavor of the month” feature. There’s Something About Mary is this rare movie that figures out a way to do both and at a ridiculously high level at that, setting the benchmark for what is possible to accomplish with an absurdly hysterical Rated-R comedy. Somehow, the Farrelly Brothers construct a should-have-been Academy Award nominated screenplay, while managing to include an amusing series of potentially offensive elements and outlandish scenarios such as a serial killer hitchhiker with an idea for a starter-up workout company (“7 minute abs”), drugging and even beating the hell out of a dog, a mentally challenged brother who has a tendency to be aggressive, a shoe-obsessed ex-boyfriend, and a story that finds all the male characters involved becoming so desperately in love with the beautiful Mary, they could all be considered stalkers. Still, it’s humorous slant works for all of it. Despite its bizarre, slapstick, or even immature humor throughout, the film succeeds against all odds and even exceeds any and all expectations. Every joke works, every gag is set up for a reason, the payoff of each joke compliments the story or ties up a loose end in a seamless way, and as twisted as the narrative or its characters get at times, it just makes you fall in love with the movie’s audacity even more. Without hesitation, we can confidently say that it’s one of the best comedies of all time.

They take the basic idea of a guy who is still in love with his high school crush and deciding that he has to reach out to her now that they are adults, and they flip the idea on its head with a completely unpredictable series of events and one of the most colorful cast of characters we have seen in a mainstream American film. They are written to perfection, and the actors involved are a pleasure to watch onscreen with how far they take the script in terms of their performance, how they fully understand their role in the narrative, how they play off each other at a level unseen by previous comedy ensembles, and how they maximize every opportunity given, no matter how big or small the role. Lin Shaye, Jeffrey Tambor, Richard Jenkins, and the hilarious Harland Williams should be credited just as much as the main cast for the movie’s success. Even the stretch where Ben Stiller’s Ted is falsely accused of murder had Richard Tyson and Rob Moran practically steal the show in the jail scene (“You sick son of a bitch. You’re gonna fry!”). Just like how we said in the review of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, the cast of There’s Something About Mary would have won the Academy Award for Best Casting had that Oscar existed in 1998.

At the center of it all is Mary, played by Cameron Diaz at the peak of her powers. It goes without saying that Diaz was one of the most beautiful movie stars of the 1990s and 2000s, but her effortless attractiveness as Mary is something to behold. It’s not as simple as her looks. Just like the title says, there really is something about her. Mary isn’t playing with people’s feelings, nor does she try to be overtly sexy with the way she moves or speaks to people. She is just a fun, positive, authentic, cute, and a likable human being with a sense of humor and zest for life not seen in many people. Diaz could have easily played up her looks and phoned it in if she wanted to, but her performance shows how serious she took the heart of the character and why it needed to be portrayed in the manner it was. She understood why everyone loves Mary. This is a girl that Ted Stroemnann has not been able to get over for 13 years. Sure, she was just a crush. In fact, they never even dated, but their sweet and brief interactions in their senior year of high school were strong enough that Ted hasn’t felt love like that since. He’s right. That is real love, and women like Mary don’t come around too often. You may balk at the suggestion, but it truly is her personality that wins the audience over more than anything. By the end of the movie, there’s about 5 guys that are willing to do anything to be the one lucky enough to end up with the lovable Mary. Through the careful direction and incredible writing, the lengths these guys go to in trying to win her over is not unbelievable, even if it is depicted in a screwball type of way. Mary really is perfect, a bright light in a cruel and cold world. Shifting the story from a chilly Rhode Island setting to Miami where she resides hammers this point home, as the bright sun reflects the positive essence Mary gives off with anyone she encounters. It’s just the one of many examples that magnify the inside and out beauty of Mary Jensen, or “Matthews”.

Damn that Woogie.

Even though he’s billed third, Ben Stiller is the protagonist that ignites this wild series of events, and his awkward but earnest portrayal of Ted overcomes its stalkerish undertones. This isn’t an insulting thing to say either, as the characters don’t shy away from what Ted’s plight sounds like. Knowing his heart, the viewer knows Ted is not a stalker because he hasn’t seen Mary since high school. He just wants to reach out because it’s been eating at him for so long. What if he had a chance? He needs to know. He needs to meet up with her and get some kind of closure. He can’t get her out of his head. Something is telling him that there is something still there. He’s tried, but he cannot seem to get over the thought of what could have been. Part of it is also to get over what happened the last time they saw each other in the infamous “zipper” scene, which has a legitimate argument for being one of the most uncomfortable opening sequences in cinema history. No matter how many times you have seen it, it’s just as excruciating painful as the first time you watch it. The secondhand embarrassment stemming from it is something that needs to be seen to be believed. It literally could not have gone worse for the already shy and low-on-the-totem-pole Ted, and it’s something that led him to years of therapy in his adulthood. After viewing it in context, you can’t blame him either. Not many would have been able to get over a moment like that. Nevertheless, Ted can’t let that be the final memory he has with Mary. Even if he never dated her, that feeling he had while just interacting with her has seemingly never resurfaced since. By his own admittance, he never stopped thinking about her. If he didn’t find her, he knew his life would never be good again. He can’t live with this hole in his heart anymore, which is why he decides to take Dom’s advice to hire a claims investigator he’s worked with, not thinking anything could come of it outside of finding the reclusive Mary.

Even if Pat Healy doesn’t believe Ted’s innocent intentions, he takes on the job since he regularly goes to Miami anyway. This decision alone is what takes the already entertaining film and shoots it into the stratosphere, as Matt Dillon has never been better than he is as the slimy, obnoxious douchebag Pat Healy. With that cheesy mustache and shit-eating grin, Dillon puts on an award-worthy comic performance as the lying sack of shit that jackknifes everyone’s plans after falling in love with Mary practically on sight. Even taking his entire career into account, I still consider this as Dillon’s best work. Rumble Fish and Drugstore Cowboy be damned. Just the way he hilariously tells Ted that he’s full of shit is an example as to how strong his delivery is in his comic turn. Exemplifying the funny scumbag characterization, it’s a joy to see Healy plan out these insane lies to try and win over Mary based off what she has told her friends in private, like how he’s an architect that has worked in Nepal or his hobby being “I work with retards“. Dillon is excellent at performing the unlikable character and making him arguably the funniest element of the movie. Mary can’t even come up with a good enough reason to explain to Tucker why she likes Healy. She is open about how he dresses like a dork, chews with his mouth open, hardly ever says the right thing, and “probably farts too”, with Healy just nodding in agreement to all of her comments since he is using his audio equipment to spy on her. What’s funny about it is that his personality is so douchey and eccentric that we like this asshole too, even though he goes about everything the wrong way. They even insert some throwaway lines to further Healy’s character traits like him thanking Mary for picking up the lunch tab because he forgot his wallet.

At this point, the viewer knows Healy did it on purpose because he’s such a prick, but Dillon is just too hysterical to hate outright (“We had a deal. You said you wouldn’t fuck me, and I wouldn’t fuck you, until we got this fuck out of the fucking picture!”). This is a guy that instigates his friend’s relapse just because he wants to have a beer with him and goes with Mary to play in a charity flag football event for the intellectually disabled and treats it like a title game before cockily commenting, “Exceptional my ass!”. Even in the montage sequence, they squeeze out some gold with Healy cheating at Checkers to beat Warren, being momentarily interrupted by one of Warren’s friends who tries to get Healy’s attention (“Yeah, very good. Coconut”), and Healy demanding more money out of Warren based off what they bet on the game. Still, that’s Pat Healy. Only he can lie about getting a high from helping all of God’s creatures while ironically killing a fly or asking to grab a girl’s tits after a date. Nothing is out of the question as to what Healy will do or say.

Though he may have been a largely undiscovered or even underutilized talent as far as American audiences go, British comedian Lee Evans is uproariously funny as British architect Tucker who (SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS) is actually a waste-of-space American pizza boy who lives with his folks out in the Pompanos. Changing your profession, getting new teeth, and lying about details like your favorite movie being Harold and Maude or serving in the peace corps for a girl is one thing, but changing your entire personality, accent, and getting your back broken to get treated by the bombshell orthopedic surgeon is entirely another. Even so, that’s Norm. The chemistry between him and Dillon once Norm attempts to sabotage Healy’s whole shtick because he could tell he was a phony from the outset will have you laughing out loud, especially as they reveal more of Norm’s actual personality that draws the ire of pretty much everyone he knows. One of the funniest scenes outside of Woogie or Healy doing anything is when Healy goes with Norm to a bar Norm frequents. On arrival, the bartender reminds Norm he’s not welcome there because of how often he skips out on his tab. Norm tries to downplay the issue and greets waitress Tracy and asks how the “twins” are doing, prompting her to respond, “Fuck you, Norm”. Not missing a beat, his delivery of, “That’s it. I like it when you talk dirty to me man!” is something that has lived in my head rent free for literal decades. The same could be said about Norm’s detailed explanation as to how he got rid of Brett or Healy’s directive of, “Tell her the truth pizza boy”.

There are too many moments of comedic brilliance such as the aforementioned hitchhiker/COPS sequence and the subsequent misunderstanding in jail, the recurring gag of Mary saying something crazy to Ted only to assure him that she’s just fucking with him, the fairy tale-like use of Jonathan Richman and his band, and of course, the “Cleaning the pipes” scene. As crazy as it is for Dom to even bring it up, it’s actually sound advice. It really is like going out there with a loaded gun. By the way, the comedic stylings of Chris Elliott aren’t for everyone, as most of his work is only appreciated after the fact, but his supporting role as Dom is suited expertly to his comedic gifts. This movie’s outrageousness would not have been the same without him, and that’s a fact. Where he begins and ends the movie is something you won’t see coming in a million years. In addition, Healy getting concerned at how much speed they’re giving Puffy and wanting Norm to confirm it won’t kill him and Norm responding, “I never said that”, only for Healy to shrug and continue is just a sliver of the moments that will have you in stiches. With Ben Stiller leading this cast of eclectic and unpredictable characters, twists and turns, and a script that is certainly in the discussion for one of the most quotable of all time, this is a film that has so many legitimately hysterical moments or scenes that they will pop into your subconscious years after the fact and still get you to laugh. A production like There’s Something About Mary is the type of comedy everyone should be striving to make. To this very day, I laugh out loud thinking of everyone in shock in the third act with Healy confusingly asking, “What the hell is Brett Favre doing here?”.

On a side note, I’m on the fence about Ted’s argument about having meat in a cone as opposed to being on a stick. It’s a conversation I’m willing to have, but I’m not sure if it’s got legs.

An unforgettable comedy classic, There’s Something About Mary helps make up the benchmark for the romantic comedy genre. Solidifying Cameron Diaz as a force in Hollywood, showcasing why Ben Stiller is one of the best comic talents of his generation, held up by one of the best ensembles of all time, and a screenplay so hilarious that it garners laughs no matter how many times you watch it, the Farrelly Brothers’ best movie is an endlessly quotable, generational film that will no doubt stand the test of time as one of the purest comedic masterpieces ever put to film.

Fun Fact: Owen Wilson and Jon Stewart were also considered for the role of Ted. Bill Murray was considered for Healy, but it was ultimately decided that he was too old for the part. This was the right move too. This might be the only time in my life that I can honestly say that I’m glad Matt Dillon was chosen over Bill Murray for a role. Vince Vaughn and Cuba Gooding Jr. were also considered for Healy. Drew Bledsoe and Steve Young were both offered the Brett Favre spot, but they turned it down. Additionally, Chris Farley was considered for the role of Warren.