Say It Isn't So

Before you read this, I have to say: As much as I was ever wrong about a movie, I was wrong about this one. It's hella weak. I don't know how I enjoyed it long enough to write this review. I suspect all critics have days like this, one way or the other, where they develop opinions that seem insupportable a couple days after the review has been printed. So go ahead and read what's below to see how someone could theoretically like this movie. I don't think anyone's going to, though.

Despite what the television may have told you, it isn't technically so that "Say It Isn't So" was brought to you by those lovable scamps who made "There's Something About Mary." (They subsequently made the awful "Me, Myself & Irene," which the TV also conveniently forgot to mention.) The Farrelly Brothers, Peter and Bobby, were mere producers on this project; the script is the first one produced for Peter Gaulke and Gerry Swallow, and directorial duties were delegated to J.B. Rogers, who had previously served as assistant director for the four previous Farrelly Bros. films.

In a larger sense, however, the inaccuracy is a true one. "Say It Isn't So" is a Farrelly-type film through and through, centering around characters with good hearts who must traipse through a seemingly endless muck of human, animal and physical ugliness to achieve their modest, worthwhile goals. After the incoherence and boredom that marred "Irene," the Bros.' retreat from the controls seems wise, and they have found lieutenants who serve their vision well. The resulting film is not quite as outlandishly amusing as "There's Something About Mary," but it's better than anything else out there right now for pure hilarity.

The "it" is incest - not the intentional kind, which is almost never amusing, but the accidental kind. This accident happens because Gilly (Chris Klein), a charming young technician at the Shelbyville Animal Shelter, was orphaned at a young age and does not know his parents. Gilly is perfectly happy without a significant other until he espies Jo (Heather Graham), a haircutter who's just moved into town. When he goes to her chair, of course, clumsy Jo cuts off part of Gilly's ear, thus necessitating that the two eventually fall in love after a nauseating montage sequence (depicting falling in love, not ear-cutting).

Unfortunately, Jo's mom Valdine (Sally Field, slumming with rousing vigor) isn't too enthusiastic about Gilly's prospects, and favors a rich, handsome boyfriend whom Jo left behind in Oregon. This is why she is happy when Gilly learns that Valdine is his mom. Hearts break, confessions of accidental incest result, Jo moves away to marry old boyfriend, Gilly moves in with his parents. But, of course, the movie does not end there, since Valdine's real son shows up, thus displacing and freeing Gilly. Liberated, he chases Jo to Oregon to stop the marriage in any way he can.

Along the way, Gilly and the audience encounter intimate body parts pierced in an extremely uncomfortable-looking way, Orlando Jones as heroic double-amputee pilot Dig McCaffrey, the rectal aperture of an unfortunate cow, a veritable compendium of the species of moronic white trash, a brief interlude in a mental hospital, and of course an endless wellspring of incest jokes of all kinds. A Farrelly Bros.-type comedy needs such a variety and excess of gross and tasteless jokes to succeed, of course. It also needs zippy enough pacing and straightforward enough presentation that we don't need to think about any of the jokes for too long, and these are both ably handled by Gaulke, Swallow and Rogers.

But the key element for Farrelly-model success is that someone's motives need to be pure. We need to have some sort of investment in the characters, to take the edge off those horrid jokes just that little bit. Otherwise you get "Scary Movie," whose tastelessness and apathy towards its characters made it suitable only for hard-core (in both senses) comedy fans. Gilly and Jo stay pure, and thus the film works. It doesn't really matter that Klein and Graham both deliver virtually colorless performances themselves; they just need to be nice and look nice, which they do.

Jones and Field can be relied upon to deliver comedy in their supporting roles, and both do an exceptional job here. Jones, in particular, continues his enviable string of significantly improving every film he's been in with a perfectly timed and inflected performance; young comic actors should watch this man. Numerous other actors and actresses (including Farrelly fave Lin Shaye) make small roles sharply comedic, and of course every minute bring some new outrage to delight in.

If Klein and Graham could deliver laughter on Jones' level, "Say It Isn't So" would be as funny as "There's Something About Mary," which had masters of hilarity Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz in the equivalent leads. This film also sometimes goes a bit overboard with the emotional content, especially (as noted) in its montage sequences. But "Say It Isn't So" adheres to the basic principles of Farrelly movie-making, and the result is hilarity with a moral conscience to fall back on. This is almost always the easiest kind of hilarity to enjoy, and "Say It Isn't So" is an enjoyably, if not overwhelmingly, hilarious film.

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