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Bruce Almighty

© James C. Hess

Divine.

When I was first starting out to be, among other things, a humorist I received some unsolicited advice from an established humorist. Advice which has since proven valuable time and time again:

It doesn't matter, the humorist told me, what you find funny. What matters in the end is what your audience finds funny and what makes them laugh again and again, wanting more and more from you.

In other words: A humorist is only as good as the next laugh he can provoke.

Which may, I suggest, go to explain much about the likes of Jim Carrey: Here is a man who can and does make millions laugh. That is, he makes them laugh so long as he takes what he does seriously but without taking himself seriously.

Confused? Find this contradictory? Then you are in the right state of mind to view the latest movie featuring Carrey: "Bruce Almighty", a funny movie about a man who who takes himself seriously, too seriously, but, at the same time, doesn't take what he does seriously, and, as a result, becomes a joke.

That is, until he learns the patience of God.

But to get to that point he must--and does--try the patience of the almighty.

In "Bruce Almighty" Carrey plays a man for whom the most important thing is to become an anchor on a Buffalo television station. When he fails to realize this goal he turns on his maker and demands from God himself not only an explanation but an apperance.

Hardly funny, this. And why should it be? But, wait. Patience, of Job, please.

Now I will be the first to admit I have, of late, wondered what goes on in the mind of Jim Carrey. I think, having seen his latest work, I know. But to get to that let's go back to the movie at hand: If one cares to demand logic it would follow that the character Carrey plays here is not fit to be an anchor (or a journalist, for that matter). We see proof of why this is by way of not one but two examples.

So why, then, should we care if he ever gets want he wants? We shouldn't. But we should, at least here, care about how he goes about realizing his intent.

Which is where the humor comes in, incidentially.

I must inform that Carrey's character does not immediately realize his dream of becoming an anchor. And when he learns of this, during a broadcast, he unleashes his mouth and, well, it's all Carrey from then on.

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