When the Farrelly brothers looked out the back of their video truck one morning last spring, they found the streets of South Beach drenched by a tropical deluge. After a big clap of thunder, Bobby Farrelly mused, “You wonder how long it took for people to figure out not to stand under a tree when it was lightning out.”
Peter Farrelly’s answer: “Probably a long time.”
Whatever the odds are of being hit by lightning, surely it’s not more farfetched than the odds of seeing Meryl Streep in a Farrelly brothers movie. “We met her at a luncheon a couple of years ago, and she said, `I’d love to do something with you guys,”‘ Bobby explains. “And we said, `Really?”‘
The Farrellys’ new comedy, “Stuck on You,” stars Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins who give up their job as short-order cooks in Martha’s Vineyard and move to Hollywood so Kinnear’s character can pursue his dream of being an actor. In today’s scene, the twins introduce themselves to the multiple Oscar winner, who — playing herself — is having lunch at a chic Los Angeles eatery. Streep recalls seeing the twins in their high school glory, winning a big Thanksgiving football game, with one twin blocking, the other running the ball over the goal line.
Trouble with terminology
Streep’s only problem is with the football terminology. When Kinnear says, “Well, actually it was my brother who scored the touchdown,” she’s supposed to respond: “Well, you threw him a helluva block.” Instead, she frequently says, “You threw him a helluva pass,” an impossible feat for most conjoined twins.
The idea of the Farrellys doing a comedy about conjoined twins initially inspires a full-throated gasp of horror. But the dirty little secret about “Stuck on You,” which is certainly not part of the studio ad campaign, is that the film shows off a kinder, gentler side of the Farrellys. In fact, while much of the humor of the film, which opened Friday, is inspired by the twins’ predicament, the movie is actually an endearing love story between two brothers. As is the Farrellys’ custom, most of the extras in the scene are family members, friends and crew. The two men having lunch with Streep, for example, are the Farrellys’ attorney and an old friend who works at their production company.
The Farrelly brothers wrote “Stuck on You” in 1990, long before the string of hits, including “Dumb & Dumber” (1994), “There’s Something About Mary” (1998) and “Me, Myself & Irene” (2000) that have made them a brand name in comedy.
In the past, the Farrellys have managed to offend practically everyone, from advocates for the disabled to performers such as Carnie Wilson and Camryn Manheim, who bashed their last film, “Shallow Hal,” for its portrayal of overweight women. Peter recalls watching Manheim on TV saying she wouldn’t see “Shallow Hal” if it was the last movie on Earth. (“Carnie said it made her cry,” Peter dryly reports, “but at least she saw the movie.”) Even the people who bankrolled their movies have sometimes seemed dismissive. Peter hasn’t forgotten going to the 1994 premiere of “Dumb & Dumber,” only to hear New Line chief Bob Shaye get up and say that he hadn’t gotten into the business to make comedies like that. “I love Bob,” Peter says. “But he never got the movie.”
Filmmakers who squeeze laughs out of sensitive issues always will be in the line of fire. On the other hand, “Stuck on You” is so full of uplift that young male moviegoers may grouse that it’s gross-out deficient. It’s doubtful they’ll be impressed that when the Farrellys needed someone to play a doctor who separates conjoined twins, they hired Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson, who successfully separated a pair in 1987.
It turns out the Farrellys raised $1 million for various charities by auctioning off walk-on roles in “Stuck on You.” One ardent fan paid $100,000 for a small part and an upfront credit. The brothers not only hired a pair of conjoined twins, Lori and Reba Schappell, as technical consultants, but when they learned that Reba was pursuing a career as a country singer, they put one of her songs at the end of the movie.
Actors with disabilities
When the Farrellys were teenagers, one of their friends, Danny Murphy, broke his neck in a diving accident and has been a paraplegic ever since. After the release of “Dumb & Dumber,” Murphy, who had become an actor, complained that the brothers didn’t have any disabled actors in their movie. Since then, they have gone out of their way to hire actors who are disabled or mentally challenged.
“Most importantly, Danny told us that disabled actors shouldn’t be sweet, angelic types — they should be the crazy guys, which is often how they got disabled in the first place,” Peter says. “Now probably one-third of the actors we audition are disabled, and most of them are better than anyone else we see.”
Murphy has a role in the film, as does Ray (Rocket) Valliere, a developmentally disabled friend of the Farrellys’ who has several prominent scenes as a waiter who works for the twins in their fast-food joint. “Rocket had never acted before, but he’s such a great character that I decided to write a role for him,” Peter says. When asked about his affinity for disabled people, Peter hesitates, worried that anything he says will appear squishy and self-serving.
“If there were a religion that involved the karma of helping people, that would be Pete’s religion,” says Bradley Thomas, their producer and production company partner. “Maybe it’s because Pete had a lot of red lights in his life, struggling to make it for a long time, but he’s more comfortable around people who are handicapped or have had hard luck than he is around people who are doing well. He treats them like regular people, which, let’s face it, most of us don’t.”
A key reason the Farrellys made “Shallow Hal” was to use comedy to illuminate the theme of inner beauty, a message that was lost on most of the film’s critics. Even though “Stuck on You” has yet to inspire any significant protests, the sour reaction to “Shallow Hal” has left its mark. The brothers have become vociferous opponents of political correctness, which they believe has forced most modern comedy into a straitjacket, far from the anarchic spirit of classic ’70s films such as “Animal House,” “Caddyshack” and “Blazing Saddles.”
When “Barbershop” was attacked for making fun of civil-rights luminaries, the Farrellys called Ice Cube to commiserate. “The ruckus that blew up over `Barbershop’ should be studied by every university in the country. It’s political correctness gone berserk,” Peter says. “People seem to forget that anyone who picks on a disabled person in our movies is portrayed as the bad guy. In the end, no matter what you do, some people aren’t going to like it. I mean, there were people who were offended by `Schindler’s List,’ right?”
