Miloš Forman directs Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito and Paul Giamatti in this biopic of anti-comedian Andy Kaufman.

A spot-on proper acting turn from Jim Carrey preserves this. He treads the line between sincerity and fakeness, naivety and irritating wonderfully. His commitment to “the bit” is a heartfelt tribute to Kaufman himself. Being massively into live comedy personally, there’s a seductive appeal in seeing the birth of the modern comedy boom from the perspective of someone inarguably at its experimental vanguard. This is legend being regurgitated as fact. Appropriately so. I have Bob Zmuda’s biography of his friend and partner in crime AND I’m hyped for Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night. I couldn’t be more part of the target audience for Man On The Moon. Forman’s movie does have an inbuilt problem though. Kaufman nose dived his career by doing repetitive abrasive stunts that soured audiences to him, the man and the prankster were inseparable. Which means after an hour of him gleefully finding a spotlight, you see him push the same self destructive buttons over and over, again and again. And this isn’t presented as tragedy. Framing his final years with this bent makes for an exasperating second half.

7

Perfect Double Bill: Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (2017)