Un monde d'illusions

"Fool's Paradise" tries to be funny and entertaining. It tries. Charlie Day wrote & directed an homage to Buster Keaton and the Peter Sellers film "Being There," but he didn't deliver an entertaining film. It is meant to be a satire of who we make celebrities and how quickly our opinions can change. By the end, though, I just didn't care.

I love Charlie Day and thought he was perfectly cast to be the lead. His eyes portrayed his naivety perfectly, but he lacked the physical comedy and over expression that would have made this more entertaining.

What he needed was help. He needed a partner to help with both writing and directing duties. Someone to say "that's not funny" or "this scene makes no sense and needs a rewrite." I get what he was trying to accomplish and I hope it leads to more attempts by Charlie Day. But I hope the next attempts are better.

A mute John Doe (Charlie Day) is found in a mental institution with the capacity of a five year old. He is released into LA where he is picked up by a movie producer (Ray Liotta). The producer is tired of the star of his movie and intends to use our doppelganger John Doe as a stand-in to replace his star. Lenny (Ken Jeong) is a weasel "publicist" who mistakenly calls John Doe "Latte Pronto" due to the producer's coffee demands. Latte is on his way to becoming a big Hollywood star.

This is a fascinating movie. Someday, someone will dissect this movie to determine why it's not funny. The most obvious reason is that Charlie Day is playing a mute. He has one of the most comedic voices in the world today. People laugh just by the sound of it. It's like an NBA player saying he'll play while having his hands tied behind his back. Sometimes, actors like to go 180 opposite their strength to show that they have undiscovered depths. They go against their popular narrative. In this one, he's trying to do his version of The Tramp. The character construction is too sloppy. He is literally a blank. Instead of a living breathing character, he is a hole on the screen. There is nothing there.

His nothingness may be the point. The movie is satirizing Hollywood and its nothingness quality. In that, this is not breaking any new cinematic grounds. It is ridiculous without being funny. Ken Jeong's over the top character Lenny is almost there at first until he meets Latte. There is a puzzling hole with Latte that overwhelms any chance for humor. The movie just dies.

I've probably watched Always Sunny through 10 times and love satirical film, but the pacing was rough. Movie started out great, and then seemed to drag heavily in the last half. Some of the bits just got old and somethings just got played out. Plus, the film just kind of ended and didn't feel resolved at all.

I really hope we get more like this, but a little more buttoned up on the editing. I realize it's hard to make an entire movie around someone who doesn't speak, but you might need to have people speak to each other more, rather than speaking to a wall the entire time. Charlie day puts his heart and soul into it, plus Jimmi Simpson is always great. It's just a rough viewing experience.

Just to be clear Charlie Day is among my favourite comedic actors ever, IASIP is a masterpiece. For that reason I had extremely high hopes for Fool' Paradise, however my rating of 7 is generous. Fool's paradise slightly misses the mark with concept, does not have enough laughs (most coming from Adrien Brody) and it felt clear that the ending was written years after the body of the script. Charlie Day was funny but not nearly expressive enough for a silent character, 90% of the time he was showing just confusion. This film was carried by an amazing cast who all delivered excellent performances and Charlie Day's direction which was smooth and shows clear potential. Overall it was a lacking script but I 1000% would watch another film written and directed by Charlie Day as there were obvious signs of potential.

I saw this because I liked the story, from what I gathered from the trailer. I am also a big fan of Charlie Day. I think the concept is great. A virtual blank slate, adopted by Hollywood, manipulated into benefiting their own needs, and everyone projects their own feelings onto him. I think the execution left quite a bit to be desired though. There was so much more that they could have explored, but it was a bit too silly and nonsensical for its own good. It didn't really go anywhere either. It was more of a "bunch of stuff happens" type of movie, than one with a meaningful narrative. While I wanted to like this, especially considering it's great cast, it fell short of anything exceptionally funny or meaningful. Sorry Charlie.