I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)
Directors: John Requa and Glenn Ficarra
Entertainment grade: A–
History grade: A–
During a five-year period in the 1990s, con artist Steven Jay Russell escaped from Texas prisons four times – always on Friday 13th.
Identity
Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) is a churchgoing cop, devoted father and loving husband to a woman so all-American she gets up in the middle of the night to bake cookies. On the down-low, he's gay.
In the film, a car crash prompts him to change his life. "I'm gonna be a fag!" he shouts joyfully at the paramedics who are scraping him off the road. He moves to Miami, acquires a boyfriend called Jimmy Kemple, starts wearing bright colours and buys miniature pinschers. The only problem with his new lifestyle? "Being gay is really expensive."
He embarks on a life of fraud, beginning with faking an accident. This is pretty much true. In real life, he won a $45,000 claim by deliberately slipping over. Soon, he is also engaging in credit card fraud.
People
Russell ends up in prison, where he meets fellow inmate Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor). They fall madly in love. The real Morris worked with the film-makers, and the real Russell was impressed with Carrey's and McGregor's performances. "They've got it down," he told the Observer. "The way we speak, the mannerisms, the clothes – everything. It's surreal."
Career
As a master manipulator, Russell bags them all sorts of privileges behind bars, including steak dinners. Some of this has been invented for the film, but it's in keeping with Russell's character and skills.
When they get out, Russell fakes an impressive CV to get a job as a chief financial officer for a medical management company. This is true, though the company (in real life, North American Medical Management) and its staff have been tactfully fictionalised. In real life, as in the film, Russell stole around $800,000 by investing the company's money in short-term accounts and taking half of the profits as an unauthorised personal commission.
Escapes
Back in prison and separated from his beloved Morris, Russell stockpiles clothing from the changing room in which female prisoners discard their civvies. One day, he dons the clothes – hotpants and fishnets – and simply walks out. Russell did actually pull this off, though in real life his escape outfit was a less eye-catching pair of women's red tracksuit bottoms and a tie-dyed T-shirt. The film has also altered the timing of events. This escape occurred in 1993, when Russell was still with his previous boyfriend, Kemple, and was not yet involved with Morris.
More escapes
Back in prison, Russell notices the green scrubs prison doctors wear. He steals green marker pens from the art room and uses them to dye his white uniform the same shade. Again, he is able to walk out. In real life, the prison guard shouted as he walked past: "Damn, doc, those look like prison whites you're wearing." Russell replied cheerily: "Well, don't shoot." The guard didn't.
Even more escapes
After landing back in jail again, Russell embarks on his most elaborate scam yet: "Faking your death from Aids is no easy task, believe me." Russell loses around 50lbs of weight, and affects symptoms including vomiting. He steals and falsifies his medical records to indicate he has tested positive for HIV. Persuaded that he is on the verge of death, his doctors send him to a private care facility.
There, he gets on the telephone to his carers and impersonates a researcher, asking for late-stage Aids patients to enroll in a clinical trial. He is permitted to join it – which means he gets to leave the facility. A week later, in real life, Russell phoned back as the researcher to inform the facility he was dead. It was a year before he was caught impersonating a millionaire at a bank. Russell is now under constant watch. He is scheduled for release on 12 July 2140, by which time he would be 182 years old – assuming he doesn't escape again.
Verdict
A fast, funny screenplay does justice to a true story which is far stranger than most fiction.
