Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond - 2017

It is not news that Jim Carrey is a fantastic actor, capable of iconic interpretations, but there is always a kind of trial by fire for comedian actors about being able to relax to do drama, and few are able (or who knows), few who try). I could talk here about Adam Sandler being perfectly directed to act in masterpieces of the drama like Punch Drunk Love, or Uncut Gems, but I want to talk about this master of humor who is Jim Carrey. For those who have not seen the 1999 Milos Forman dramatic classic, Man on the Moon, where Carrey masterfully plays Andy Kaufman, maybe this post will be less interesting, or who knows, will encourage you to search not only for this documentary commented here but also for the film itself. In the film Man on the moon, we see the life trajectory of a great comedian named Andy Kaufman (who unfortunately in my country, Brazil, did not have much recognition, given that we did not experience the television experience that pleased North American nights). Kaufman has always been a rebel within his art of humor because before all that which today is almost "normal" in humor, he already did more and better. Provoke laughter followed by discomfort, nervous laughter, and even end up being more offensive than pleasant, that was his business. Carrey played the comedian in an almost unbelievable way, and all that just guaranteed an extreme quality for the film. Okay. [source](https://cdn-ak.f.st-hatena.com/images/fotolife/g/gock221B/20180216/20180216092301.png)

The fact is that many years later, in 2017, director Chris Smith decided to shed light on hours and hours of recordings he had kept behind the scenes of Man on the moon, showing another side of the story. In this new insight into the background, we see little by little the growing construction of an Andy Kaufman taking over from Jim Carrey, and that was gaining more and more space to the point that, for a time, there was no more Carrey, only Kaufman. And for those who followed the work of Kaufman or even Carrey playing Kaufman, you know that one of the characters of the comedian at the time who was a total success on TV was a bizarre and disagreeable loudmouth named Tony Clifton, who was brilliant for Andy's transformation experience. And in this 2017 documentary, we see that many times Carrey practically woke up in the morning like Tony Clifton, and that was a disaster for producers, makeup artists, cameras, it was chaos. The experience was becoming intense enough to mess with Carrey’s mind, who realized that he was practically channeling Kaufman's life and that it needed to end. Perhaps many actors have had similar experiences in their acting journey, but seeing this with intimate and detailed recordings shows that getting into the shoes of someone who has lived and made a difference in the world, can be very, very complicated and challenging. It is not news that Carrey was perfectly correct in the dramatic and funny performance in a combined way, a versatile and powerful actor as he does not make a mistake, even if he tried. A must-see film for fans of the actor, Kaufman fans, and documentary fans.