The Majestic
Directed by Frank Darabont
Written by Michael Sloane
Starring Jim Carrey, Amanda Dettmer, Martin Landau, Hal Holbrook, Bob Balaban
Release Date December 25th, 2001
Published January 30th, 2002
The 50's are a decade easily evoked onscreen. Simply have kids with seriously greased hair, drab clothing, long dresses for women, business suits and fedoras for men, and the ubiquitous white picket fences. There you have the fifties, throw in a couple of cultural touchstones like the first decade of TV, I Like Ike buttons, and the Hollywood Communist witch-hunt and you've got a decade ready made for the movies. The decade is the easily evoked backdrop for Frank Darabont's The Majestic, the story of a Hollywood scriptwriter accused in the witch-hunts and asked to name names or be blacklisted.
The scriptwriter is Peter Appelton; played by Jim Carrey as a somewhat arrogant but affable guy who, to impress a girl, accidentally attends a communist rally and now faces the wrath of the House un-American Activities Committee. Peter is set to testify in two days but before that happens he has an accident that leaves him with amnesia and strands in the small town of Lawson, California where he is mistaken for the army hero son of the local theater owner Harry, played by Martin Landau.
Both Carrey and Landau are good but neither can overcome the screenplay, which aims at the heartstrings while ignoring the brain. Carrey does have an effective scene in front of the House un-American activities committee where he explains his attending the communist rally as simply a guy being horny.
Beyond that scene, which is smart and funny, the rest of the film is crammed with emotional set pieces so obvious that you know everything that's coming well before it comes and then are annoyed at how they are resolved. The ending is truly uninspired as if someone decided the film desperately needed a happy ending even if it was going to have to force it and compromise the little integrity the film had.
Jim Carrey is a good actor, he proved that in Man On the Moon and The Truman Show. In The Majestic he seems a little desperate as if he chose this film for the sole purpose of courting Oscar and that desperation comes through in a couple of forced scenes, one with a dying Landau and another later in a cemetery. Still, Carrey is the strongest part of The Majestic which suffers not only from its weak screenplay but also Darabont's 50's setting, chosen because of the Commie Hollywood witch-hunts. Other than that, Darabont relies on those tried and true 50's set pieces like crewcuts, fedora's and the like.
I prefer the "noirish" take on the decade as presented in films like LA Confidential with hipster lingo and the seedy underbelly. The type of setting where the witch-hunts were more meaningful because Hollywood stars would attend underground meetings in secret locations in places like the seedy smoke-filled halls of an Elmore Leonard novel. The Majestic prefers uplift to impact and that is its main failure.
