Director: Milos Forman
Screenplay: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Starring: Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Courtney Love, Paul Giamatti
Running Time: 119 minutes
Genre: Biography, comedy, drama
This film tells the story of American entertainer Andy Kaufman (Carrey). His bizarre performances fail at nightclubs, where the audiences want traditional comedy, but intrigue Hollywood agent George Shapiro (DeVito). Despite his disdain for sitcoms, Kaufman rises to fame as Latka in the popular comedy show Taxi (1978-1983), which leads to appearances on Saturday Night Live, Late Night with David Letterman and others. However Kaufman's live set, which is more performance art than comedy, as well as his taste for bizarre elaborate practical jokes and pranks, including appearances as his alter ego, the obnoxiously rude and untalented lounge singer Tony Clifton, and wrestling women in the guise of a professional wrestling villain, offend and alienate his audience and co-workers.
Outside of the sitcom Taxi Andy Kaufman never achieved mainstream acceptance, but he became kind of a cult figure, inspiring the REM song from which this film takes it's title. He is portrayed here as a talented, if unconventional performer, who there was never really a niche for, and probably still isn't. Carrey turns in a superb performance as Kaufman, and has great support form Danny DeVito as his loyal but frustrated manager (DeVito starred alongside the real Kaufman in Taxi), ass well as Courtney Love who is underused as Kaufman's long-suffering partner Lynne Margulies, and Paul Giamatti plays Kaufman's sidekick Bob Zmuda. The cast from Taxi also make cameo appearances as themselves. The film is stylishly made, starting with Carrey as Kaufman interrupting the film's opening credits to tell the audience the film is already over and they should go home. It never really gets under the skin of Kaufman and, if you want to find out what made the man tick you won't learn it here. In fact after the film, it's unclear how much of Kaufman was real and how much was just an elaborate put on. Which probably would have pleased him no end.
A documentary about the film's deeply strange production was released on Netflix in 2017 called Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond.
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