| There's Something About Mary | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Bobby Farrelly Peter Farrelly |
| Produced by | Michael Steinberg Bradley Thomas Charles B. Wessler Frank Beddor |
| Screenplay by | Ed Decter John J. Strauss Peter Farrelly Bobby Farrelly |
| Story by | Ed Decter John J. Strauss |
| Narrated by | Jonathan Richman |
| Starring | Cameron Diaz Matt Dillon Ben Stiller Chris Elliott Lee Evans |
| Music by | Jonathan Richman |
| Cinematography | Mark Irwin |
| Editing by | Christopher Greenbury |
| Studio | Conundrum Entertainment |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | July 15, 1998 |
| Running time | 119 minutes [1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $23 million[2] |
| Box office | $369,884,651[2] |
There's Something About Mary is a 1998 comedy film, directed by the Farrelly brothers, Bobby and Peter. It stars Cameron Diaz, Matt Dillon and Ben Stiller, and it is a combination of romantic comedy and gross-out film.
The film was placed 27th in the American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Laughs: America's Funniest Movies (see the 100 Years Series), a list of the 100 funniest movies of the 20th century. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted it the 4th greatest comedy film of all time. Diaz won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress, an MTV Movie Award for Best Performance, an American Comedy Award for Best Actress, a Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Best Actress, she also received a Golden Globe nomination for her performance (but lost to Gwyneth Paltrow).
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Awkward and shy 16-year-old high-schooler Ted Stroehmann lands a prom date with his dream girl Mary Jensen, just to have it cut short by a painful and embarrassing zipper accident involving his penis and ends up going to the hospital. After that, they lose touch with each other.
13 years later, Ted is still in love — maybe even obsessed — with her. On the advice of his best friend Dom, he hires sleazy private detective Pat Healy to track her down. Healy finds that she is an orthopedic surgeon living in Miami with her friend, Magda, but Healy falls in love with the irresistible Mary as well. Healy resorts to lying, cheating, stalking, and drugging Magda's dog to win Mary but is exposed by Mary's architect friend, the apparently crippled Tucker. Tucker, however, turns out to be a fraud himself, a pizza boy who is also in love with Mary and drives potential rivals away by slander, including Brett Favre, the famous American football star (playing himself), whom she almost married.
Ted, aided by Dom, drives down to Florida and seems to have won Mary's love, until an anonymous letter exposes his being less than honest about his link to Healy. While Ted confronts Healy and Tucker, Mary is confronted by Dom, who turns out to be her former boyfriend Woogie, who "got weird on her" back in high school, setting up the original prom scenario. Having found out that Tucker also lied about Mary's former love interest, football player Brett Favre, Ted decides that Mary should be with Brett, as Brett was the only one who did not resort to deceit to win Mary. After reuniting Brett and Mary, Ted leaves tearfully but Mary chases after him, preferring him over Brett.
The film concludes with the two engaging in a kiss while a guitarist (Jonathan Richman) who narrates/sings along all the story is accidentally shot by Magda's boyfriend who was trying to shoot Ted so he could win over Mary.
This sleeper hit was the highest-grossing comedy of 1998 in North America as well as the fourth-highest-grossing film of the year. It also catapulted Diaz and Stiller into the limelight. The film has made $369 million worldwide, including $176 million in the U.S. alone.[2]
Critical reaction for the film was generally positive. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 83% based on 82 reviews, and an average rating of 7/10, with the consensus: "There's Something About Mary proves that unrelentingly, unabashedly puerile humor doesn't necessarily come at the expense of a film's heart." [3] Metacritic gives the film a score of 69% based on reviews from 29 critics.[4]
Roger Ebert gave it three out of four stars, stating "What a blessed relief is laughter. It flies in the face of manners, values, political correctness and decorum. It exposes us for what we are, the only animal with a sense of humor."[5]
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