MOVIE REVIEW . Number 23

by Kris   ⋅   February 25, 2007   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

The power of suggestion leads us down a dark road of deceit and doggie death daydreams in Number 23. Sporting a Kevin Bacon style mullet, Jim Carrey portrays an ordinary dog catcher named Walter Sparrow. Now Carrey’s portrayed God (Bruce Almighty), the Grinch, the Riddler and other over-the-top personae, but Walter is seemingly normal, even banal, and he knows it. Plus his name is Walter - borrrrring. While he lacks friends, he has a devoted wife Agatha and teenage son/buddy with the unfortunate bird-on-bird name Robin Sparrow. Plus his wife is played by buxom blonde Virginia Madsen - far from boring.

A series of mishaps spawned by an obstinate bulldog lead Walter to a bright red well-worn book whose content is a little too familiar. He is drawn to the coincidental similarities and, like the title character Fingerling, becomes obsessed with the number 23. Walter’s name, license plate, social security number all add up to the magic number. Historic tragedies and biblical warnings, he finds, also conveniently add up. This is casually dismissed by Agatha’s close friend and third avian reference psychologist Miles Phoenix who tells Sparrow that he’s making connections simply because he’s actively seeking them. What Dr. Phoenix doesn’t realize is that Walter is secretly obsessing over his pink tie’s numerology; red + white = 23. Pink is also the color of Agatha’s Bakery boxes and ohmigosh, it’s her maiden name. This does not bode well in Walter’s warp, but the good doctor urges him to finish the book.

As Walter reads on (with a weird sounding Carrey narration almost reminiscent of the stuffy-nosed stapler-obsessed guy from Office Space), he imagines himself as Fingerling the Detective, in a saturated-contrast charcoal-scape noir dreamland. The women are all lit with a fuzzy filter as if a soft brush erased all of their pores and shadows. Fingerling is more defined, as was Bogart, with wrinkles still crinkling at the camera. Shirtless, he shows off a giant thorny Maori-esque tribal tattoo, for those audience members who get confused when a character is daydreaming. I know some people were still confused, but when you see Carrey with the tats, that’s Fingerling. Also Carrey with a sax, that’s Fingerling. Carrey having kinky sex = Fingerling.

So now that you know the “formula”, you can relax and pick out the cute intermittent superficial clues like Phoenix’s Jaguar plates, blatant birthmarks on people mimicking animal’s, Sparrow always descends the “Stairway to Heaven” in the park, Sparrow’s visit to the King Edward “Hel” (neon spelling out Hotel with the “o” and “t” burnt out). Maybe you’ll attempt to go deeper (you know me, always trying to further decipher things), with the theory that birds evolved from fish, yet the latter is cold-blooded (like a killer hehe), fingerling is another word for fledgling fish… could the fingerling turn into a sparrow? Hmmmm.

Now I could get into this mind-trippy brain-bender stuff, but Number 23 didn’t really delve too deeply. Blame the trailer editor, but I thought it was going to deal mainly with Sparrow’s escalating paranoia, but I didn’t really feel it. There was no real psychological degradation, no real thrill in this psychological thriller. Fortunately, there is good reason for this which I don’t want to give away, but I don’t want you to get trailer-tricked as well. Sparrow’s son gets engrossed and involved which deters the whole “going crazy alone” bit the trailer eschewed. There were also a few clues that get overlapped and slapped on at the climax that you won’t see coming. I mean, you kinda know, but you weren’t supplied the details, which is a no-no for a mystery.

I will praise Number 23’s proposition that murderers are not always easily recognizable; they could look as sweetly innocuous as smiles-a-lot Jim Carrey, who really doesn’t get the respect he deserves. His sad dog eyes made my eyes well up at the end (dammit Jim, aren’t you a comedian?). Number 23 also reminds us that our judicial system often imprisons the innocent and may sentence a murderer to “life in prison”, but he’ll be out on parole soon. Ah, comforting. And since the novel with the bright red cover that started it all is well-worn, how many others out there have succumbed to the number?

About the Author

Kris Kobayashi-Nelson says these directors/screenwriters rarely disappoint: Peter Greenaway, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Gus van Sant. Gregg Araki. Kris claims that Jake Gyllenhaal, Cillian Murphy, Desmond Harrington and Casey Affleck are much more than pretty faces.