Directed by Milos Forman
Written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
Starring Jim Carrey, Danny DeVito, Courtney Love, and Paul Giamatti
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 1 hour 58 minutes
Available on blu-ray from Kino Lorber February 22

by Ian Hrabe, Staff Writer

The staying power of Milos Forman’s 1999 biopic of comedy legend Andy Kaufman is fascinating given how the film’s script is essentially your dime a dozen, point A to B biopic. There is so much focus on ticking off all the boxes on the Life of Andy Kaufman checklist that it encodes what I like to call Biopic-itis into the film’s DNA. You know what I’m talking about, right? The whole notion of making someone’s life story into a movie without employing any creativity to make it an interesting film in its own right and seemingly designed to net an actor their Oscar. Andy Kaufman’s absurdist performance art is so compelling, it’s seemingly begging any filmmaker worth their salt to make a biopic as equally absurd and wild and weird. Director Milos Forman didn’t understand that, despite his film being fine by any metric (as you would expect from a two-time Academy Award winning director), but when you’re watching Man on the Moon it becomes clear that the one person who fully gets Andy Kaufman is the guy filling his shoes on the big screen.

Jim Carrey doesn’t save Man on the Moon from being a ho-hum biopic, but he certainly does everything in his power to capture Andy Kaufman’s particular blend of kindhearted chaos. Carrey’s method take on Kaufman was really brought to light in the 2017 documentary Jim and Andy: The Great Beyond, which features behind-the-scenes footage of Jim’s full inhabitation of Andy Kaufman during the shooting of the film (much the the frustration of everyone working with him). Method actors are an easy punchline when folks want to take a jab at the frou frou Hollywood types, but it’s hard to argue that it doesn’t work in Man on the Moon. It’s certainly why Kino Lorber is reissuing the film and giving it a new 2K master. 

To describe any film as a “Jim Carrey Tour De Force” before 1998 would have been read as a goof. The Truman Show changed that and kicked off the second act of his career where he proved he could be a “serious actor.” The Truman Show, Man on the Moon and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are essentially the Holy Trinity of Jim Carrey as Great Actor, and I’ve always been puzzled by how that trend didn’t continue. Post 2004 Carrey took on more diverse roles, but there isn’t a single one in the bunch you would even remember (that said, his recent turn as a Mr. Rogers-esque children’s show host going through a mental breakdown on the Showtime series Kidding felt like the closest thing to “Peak Jim Carrey” in a long while). It’s a damn shame, because watching Man on the Moon is watching the man unleash his full potential, which is to say it’s equal parts dramatic gravitas and the physical slapstick comedy that made Carrey a household name. 

Despite adhering to a strict biopic formula, Man on the Moon is not without its charms. Carrey recreates Kaufman’s most famous bits with total enthusiasm, from recreating Latka on Taxi (with the original cast of that show reprising their roles), the Mighty Mouse theme sing-a-long, reading The Great Gatsby on stage in its entirety to punish an audience who weren’t appreciating his oddball humor, and on and on. The flaw is that it essentially moves between these without any narrative sinews to tie them together. It’s Andy Kaufman’s greatest hits performed by Jim Carrey.

The best part of the film details his time on the Memphis professional wrestling scene, where he would wrestle women and piss off fans as the Intergender Wrestling Champion. It’s the sort of heel persona that WWE could never get away with today, but there’s a reason Kaufman’s gimmick is part of comedy and pro wrestling lore to this day: because it was freaking great. The film recreates his feud with Memphis babyface Jerry “The King” Lawler (who plays himself in another of the film’s sweet tributes to the man from his friends and compatriots) with a sort of unrestrained glee. Had the movie been focused on his wrestling career, I think that would have made for a better biopic (Side note: Box Brown’s graphic novel Is This Guy For Real?: The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman basically does exactly this, and makes for a nice palate cleanser if Man on the Moon leaves you wanting more). 

The other thing Kaufman is known for outside of his offbeat humor and pro wrestling is his untimely death from lung cancer at the age of 35. For someone who has been considered ahead of his time, there’s a lot of tragedy in the fact that Kaufman didn’t live to see himself revered as a legend. Carrey’s dramatic chops in these final sequences are truly phenomenal, and I can’t think of another role that he plays with this much pathos. There is a brilliant sequence at the very end where Kaufman goes to see a medicine man in the Philippines as a last ditch effort to cure his late stage cancer, and when he sees the rub, lets out a laugh that conveys the great cosmic joke that we are all a part of. That laughing face dissolves to Kaufman in a casket, and it’s the sort of pro move that you bring in someone like Milos Forman to execute. 

The supporting cast is more than game here. Danny DeVito as Andy’s agent and Paul Giamatti as Andy’s sidekick Bob Zmuda are both excellent foil’s to Carrey’s Kaufman, and even Courtney Love holds her own as Kaufman’s life partner Lynne Margulies. Then again, these types of biopics always tend to have excellent casts squandered on uninspired screenplays. Sometimes they are nothing more than a vehicle for an actor to get their Oscar doing famous person cosplay a la Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line, Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, Renee Zelwegger in Judy, and so on, etcetera. Just look at Best Actor and Actress for 2022, which have 3 nominations a piece for famous person cosplay. There are so many of these it’s hard to know when someone is a great actor and when someone is just great at playing a great actor (or singer, or dignitary, or whatever). That Jim Carrey didn’t net a Best Actor nomination for Man on the Moon feels more like a seal of quality for his performance given the humdrum performances the Academy usually rewards, but it also feels like fodder for one of those Top 5 Oscar Snubs listicles. Man on the Moon isn’t a great movie, but Carrey’s performance here makes it worth a look, and it’s one that still holds up 20+ years later.