Comedy is hard. The task of creating quality comedy is difficult even for people who enjoy reputation of great comedic talents. One such example could be found in The Man with Two Brains, 1983 film directed and co-written by Carl Reiner.
Its main star and co-writer is famous comedian Steve Martin. In the film he plays Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, brilliant brain surgeon who, despite huge ego, can’t get over the death of his beautiful wife. One day, while driving, he accidentally hits Dolores Benedict (played by Kathleen Turner), immensely attractive woman. He uses all of his skills and talents to save her life and, during the long recovery, falls in love and ultimately marries her, unaware that she is actually a sociopathic manipulative gold-digger. Two of them travel to Vienna for honeymoon and there Michael meets Dr. Alfred Necessiter (played by David Warner), scientist who developed the technique of keeping brains alive outside the rest of body in jars of special jars. Brains are provided by infamous and mysterious Elevator Killer who operates in the city. While visiting Dr. Necessiter’s laboratory Michael develops telepathic communication with one of the brains, belonging to woman named Anne Ummelmahaye (voiced by Sissy Spacek). Michael finds her to be his soulmate and falls in love with her, oblivious to her lack of physical body. But after Dr. Necessiter warns him that the brain can’t be maintained in such condition, Michael begins desperate search to find adequate body.
The Man with Two Brains is mostly funny, but the quality of humour often varies. This could be best explained by the lack of focus among screenwriting team (which included Reiner, Martin and George Gipe). While obviously devised as some kind of parody at outrageous science fiction films of past decades which featured motive of brain transplants, its humour is too broad and, at times, uses to many cliches and sometimes features slapstick as a sign of authors’ desperation. Steve Martin is, however, solid in his role and plays character who is arrogant elitist and tragically lonely man at the same time. David Warner, one of the more dependable character actors, is good in the role of mad scientist. But the most impressive work is done by Kathleen Turner in her second film role. Obviously trying to avoid typecasting after brilliant performance as cold and icy femme fatale in Body Heat, she chose to show her comedic skills, and her scenes are more memorable, despite other’s being more outrageous. This worked well for Turner’s future career, by allowing her to show greater range and resulted in some very good 1980s films. By morbid coincidence, her final scenes – when her character is getting obese – were reflected in real life, when the actress gained weight due to medical problems. Great work by all those actors, however, couldn’t overcome some deficiencies of the script, which, among other things, include revelation of Elevator Killer identity which would probably mean nothing to many of today’s viewers. Those shortcomings are, mercifully, difficult to spot because of the film’s good pace and short running time. The Man with Two Brains could be recommended as passable entertainment, although the audience shouldn’t expect too much.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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