Film / Me, Myself & Irene

Me, Myself & Irene is a 2000 Black Comedy film directed by the Farrelly Brothers, starring Jim Carrey and Renée Zellweger.

Immediately after Rhode Island State Police trooper Charlie Baileygates (Carrey) marries his sweetheart Layla (Traylor Howard), she begins having an affair with the driver of their wedding limo (hey, we did say "immediately") when she learns that he is an accomplished academic who is only driving a limo as a research project. The affair continues for years, even producing children which Charlie accepts as his own, until Layla ultimately leaves Charlie.

Traumatized by Layla's betrayal, Charlie spends the next few years avoiding confrontation and allowing others to take advantage of him. Everyone in town, apart from his foul-mouthed genius sons, treats him with contempt.

Charlie's repressed anger develops into a rude and violent Split Personality named "Hank Evans." Complications arise when Charlie is tasked with escorting a woman named Irene P. Waters (Zellweger) to Massena, New York, and Hank is both help and hindrance as Charlie and Irene try to stay alive while being pursued by both the FBI and a pair of crooked cops (Chris Cooper and Richard Jenkins) working for Irene's mobster ex-boyfriend Dickie (Daniel Greene), who seeks to silence her because She Knows Too Much.

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This film provides examples of:

• Albinos Are Freaks: Both the audience and the main characters are led to believe that Casper/Whitey is a very creepy albino man who may have murdered his family - then the audience alone is led to believe he might be going to kill the main characters when he purchases a gun and gets on a bus to Rhode Island, where the main characters are also headed. In reality, he's a nice if clingy guy whose family moved to Arizona, and he couldn't go with them because of the harsh environment. And he decided to get the gun and follow the heroes because he thought they'd be in trouble.
• Anger Montage: After a woman and her two kids cut in front of Charlie with two shopping carts full of groceries, Hank emerges and: publicly announces that she has a genital fungal infection; says a homophobic comment to a neighbor about his son; nearly drowns the little girl that told Charlie to "fuck off"; suckles on the breast of lactating mother; takes the car of the barber that ordered Charlie to park it for him and smashes into the shop, destroying it, and gives the barber a ticket for a busted headlight; takes back his stolen newspaper from his neighbor's wife, who was reading it while sitting on the toilet, and, as payback for his neighbor not picking up after his dog goes on Charlie's lawn, pulls his pants down and defecates on the neighbor's lawn.
• Artistic License – Physics: There is no way a helicopter that size could lift off carrying 3 very large men. In fact, it didn't. Oops. They used creative camera angles to make it appear that the chopper was airborne. This was largely Played for Laughs, though, since the image of three men of their size squeezing together in a tiny helicopter is akin to watching them squeeze into a VW Beetle.
• Artistic License – Space: One of Charlie's sons exclaims "Man, how the hell can they call Pluto a planet, man? What kind of planet has an eliptical orbit? This shit don't make sense!" Almost all planetary orbits are at least a little eliptical. A true oddball orbit would be a perfect circle.
• Asshole Victim: It's difficult to feel bad for some of Hank's victims considering a huge portion of them were straight-up rude to him.
• Ass Shove:
  • The police officer who gets a chicken shoved up his. Lesson there? Don't insult Charlie in front of his boys.
  • The dildo Charlie discovered in the bed where Hank and Irene had sex was apparently for Hank.
• Bed Trick: Hank convinces Irene he's actually Charlie and the two have a night of wild sex. Charlie and Irene are both annoyed about it.
• Berserk Button:
  • You will understand Charlie's plight in the first 10 minutes of the film. The button gets mashed. HARD. One of the corrupt officers also learn that insulting Charlie and threatening to hurt him is a big no-no when his adopted sons are around.
  • One for Charlie is someone abandoning someone in need. Which causes him to finally stand up to Hank when he states to do this to Irene.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The basis of Charlie's role in the movie. He's a pushover when he's Charlie, but when he's given someone to protect or when someone is mean to him, he'll come out of his shell and Hank takes care of the rest.
• Black Comedy Rape: During Hank's first laundry list of felonies, he forces himself on a horrified mother. It's pushed to absurdity by the fact that he assaults her by suckling on her lactating breast. He's even shown with a milk moustache afterwards!
• Boisterous Weakling: Though by no means non-threatening, Hank is not the scrappy fighter that he fancies himself being. The fights he starts with other people commonly result in him getting the crap beaten out of him.
• Bratty Half-Pint: A little girl tells Charlie to "fuck off" and shrieks loudly in his ear so he will go away when he tries to call her out. She gets what's coming to her when Hank shows up to try and drown her.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the end of the movie Charlie's sons thank the viewer for "watching our motherfucking movie." while the plane they're flying is pulling a flag saying, "THE END". (when only a minute previously it was pulling a flag that said, "WILL YOU MARRY ME, BITCH?")
• Brick Joke: The cow Charlie and Irene find on the street is apparently still alive days after the incident.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Charlie's sons are all incredibly profane hoods... with almost superhuman intelligence. When they were children they managed to build a working airplane.
• Butt-Monkey/The Chew Toy: Charlie, after the whole town learned of his wife's affair.
• Car Meets House: What Hank does to the barbershop owner, Dick, in retaliation for an unpaid parking ticket that’s been due for three days.
• Child Prodigy: Charlie's sons built a working plane when they were children.
• Chocolate Babies: Charlie's "sons." They still love their father however, and Charlie loves them like they were his own biological kids.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Pretty much every time Charlie's sons open their mouths.
• Comical Overreacting:
  • Subverted. This is the trope that jumpstarts the whole plot, as the limo driver, Chanté, assumes that when Charlie asks him if he accepts checks for payment (since he's low on cash) it is some kind of racial attack. And when he falsely accuses him when complaining to Layla, she automatically takes the limo driver's side and angrily yells at Charlie, refusing to give him the benefit of the doubt, despite knowing him better than that, and clearly refusing to believe him when he denies having said anything racist. Then to add further insult to injury (specifically, the injury caused by Chanté hitting Charlie with his nunchucks), she ultimately BETRAYS Charlie by later having an affair with Chanté.
  • Even Charlie's reaction to the woman tricking him in the supermarket seems to be this, at least as far as she's concerned, as she is genuinely clueless as to why he starts behaving so aggressively with her, and even goes so far as to embarrass her over the store intercom....in the presence of her children to boot! Obviously she thinks he is being extremely rude to her and completely overreacting, but since this is the final insult that has caused Charlie to reach his Rage Breaking Point, his "overreacting" is actually quite understandable.
• Cowboy Cop: Hank, right down to the Clint Eastwood impersonation.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Hank confronts the baseball players outside the gas station, he gears up to kick their asses... and gets tasered and kicked on the ground until Irene steps in.
• Description Cut:
  Jamaal: He may have Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia With Involuntary Narcissistic Rage, but he is a ''very gentle person!!!''
  Hank: (blasting The Dwarves out of his car stereo and pounding the dashboard) MOTHERFUCKER, I'M A... MOTHERFUCKER, I'M A...
• Dirty Cop: Subverted with Hank because he had a Freudian Excuse. Agents Gehrke and Boshane, however, are true to the trope.
• The Dividual: Charlie's sons are never seen apart from each other and basically share the same incredibly foul-mouthed but supremely intelligent mind.
• Doting Parent: Charlie is this to his sons, although he is clearly not their biological father. He's such a pushover that the boys don't exactly grow up into upstanding citizens, but they adore him to death and go to great lengths to help him.
• Emasculated Cuckold: Charlie's humiliation at the hands of his wife and Chante is a major reason why he developed Hank.
• Evil Hand: Near the end of the film.
• Excuse Plot: The reason Charlie and Irene are on the run is because there's... uh, well, Dickie did something, or some things, mob-related, that Irene may or may not know about or have seen, and he has connections to the cops so they can't be trusted, and he put a hit on Irene and when she ran to get Charlie's help he forgot his medication... yeah, the movie is just an excuse to get Charlie away from his meds and on the road so Hank can come out and play.
• Exposed Embarrassing Purchase: Charley Baileygates' Jerkass Split Personality "Hank" starts his rampage of revenge on the (equally jerkish) townspeople who pissed Charlie off by noticing that the woman that made Charlie snap was secretly trying to purchase a cream named "Vagiclean" and making it known to the whole store through the PA.
  Hank Evans: "Vagiclean," huh? What's the matter, honey? Little extra cheese on the taco?
  Mrs. Bittman: Excuse me?
  Hank Evans: No, excuse me. There's no tag on this. [Hank grabs the cashier's PA microphone] Price check on Vagiclean, aisle five. I repeat: price check on Vagiclean, aisle five. That's Vagiclean. We've got a customer down here with a full-on fallopian fungus. She's baking a loaf of bread and I think it's sourdough.
  [Hank inhales like he's going to yell, while a horrified Mrs. Bittman covers her children's ears in preparation]
  Hank: [continues matter-of-factly] Better rush on that.
• Extreme Doormat: Charlie really is a bit too tolerant. The first part of the movie is a Humiliation Conga of him getting walked over by his wife, his neighbors, his coworkers and the people of the town that are supposed to respect his authority as a lawman (his illegitimate children are notable exceptions as they all respect, appreciate, and love him), until one insult too many leads him to snap and become Hank for the first time.
• Everything Is Racist: Chanté takes offense to Charlie asking "Do you people take checks?" Charlie meant limo drivers - Chanté interpreted it first as black, then as little person when Charlie denied meaning it like that.
• Family of Choice: Everybody knows the boys aren’t really Charlie’s, but they love each other anyway and make a very nice little family.
• Fighting from the Inside: Charlie and Hank's fights.
• Finger in a Barrel: Subverted. Charlie attempts to talk down Dickie, putting his thumb over the muzzle of his gun. The villain just shoots off Charlie's thumb.
• Fingore: Charlie's thumb is shot off at point-blank range.
  Charlie: [after screaming bloody murder] [holds up his bloodied hand] You know that's assault and kidnapping, right?
• Forced Euthanasia: Early during the road trip to transfer Irene Waters to federal custody, she and Officer Charlie Baileygates encounter a cow that was hit by a car and Charlie, thinking the cow is a goner, shoots her with his sidearm to give her a Mercy Kill. The cow turns out to be Made of Iron, though, and keeps struggling to get up even after Charlie empties his sidearm's entire magazine on the poor thing and tries to choke her to death, all the while yelling to stop making it difficult and just die already. During the end credits, we even get to see the cow grazing in a field all bandaged up. A deleted scene takes it even further, where shortly after the incident Charlie and Irene encounter a farmer who warns them to keep an eye out for his prize cow who escaped from his pasture, adding that she has a bad habit of napping in the road.
• Frame-Up: Irene's ex-boyfriend Dickie has her arrested on a false hit-and-run charge.
• The Gentleman or the Scoundrel: The males try to seduce Irene: Charlie, a kind-hearted and naive guy, and Hank, a vulgar and violent man.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: "Hello ladies, my name is Charlie Baileygates. Would you like to see my weasel?"
• Good Cop/Bad Cop: Charlie is a good cop while Hank is a bad cop.
• Good Parents: Even though Charlie is aware that his sons are not biologically his, he still treats them like they were his flesh and blood. His rather passive nature results in them growing up to be incredibly foul-mouthed, but they adore him nonetheless.
• Groin Attack: Irene against Hank on the train.
• A Handful for an Eye: During Hank's fight with Dickie, he tries to throw dirt into Dickie's face, but misses entirely and blinds Irene instead.
• Happily Adopted: Charlie's sons are aware they're not biologically related to him (for very obvious reasons), but that doesn't stop them adoring him. Whenever Charlie is being spoken badly of, they're the first people to bat for him.
• Hate Sink: Chanté. He picks a fight with Charlie because he just happened to say "you people" to a short black guy, going as far as to attack him with nunchaku and not listening to Charlie's "bullshit" (which Charlie retaliates by slapping him). He then sleeps with Charlie's new wife Layla, not even bothering with protection since she gave birth to black triplets. He then takes Layla and leaves his kids with Charlie. His attempts to play the victim card due to his race and dwarfism only make him come across as bitter and manipulative. If there was ever somebody who should get some of Hank's wrath, it's him.
  • Layla's no peach either. She sides completely with Chanté even when the guy is physically abusing her husband right in front of her and blames Charlie for it. Keep in mind that they just got married which is foreshadowing just how awful she is not only as a person but as a wife. She and Chanté also leave their sons behind for Charlie to raise alone with no remorse or even child support.
• The Heartless: Hank is a product of Charlie's rage over his wife ditching him, and the resulting disrespect he gets from the townspeople, finally boiling over.
• Hollywood Psych:
  • Charlie and Hank are acutely aware of each other's actions. Those suffering from dissociative identity disorder initially do not retain memories of their actions from one personality to the next and takes some therapy sessions to overcome that.
  • The film's entire treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder consists of this. For staters, it is referred to as "Advanced Delusionary Schizophrenia With Involuntary Narcissistic Rage", which is made-up nonsense. Second, schizophrenia has nothing to do with Split Personalities. Third, it has to be provoked by childhood trauma, yet Charlie develops it due to experiences when he was already an adult.
• Hyde Plays Jekyll: Hank acts like he is Charlie to get Irene to sleep with him.
• In the Blood: Charlie's "sons" apparently inherited their incredible intelligence from their biological father, who is an accomplished academic.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Charlie and Hank.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Charlie's three sons. In spite of being foul-mouthed delinquents, they are academic savants who are also among the few adolescent males in any medium to consistently say "I love you Dad." And they even help him propose to Irene, too. "Will you marry me, bitch?". Plus they don't take kindly to someone threatening their dad. Just ask the chicken cop.
  • Hank makes a speech about this with Irene. Also when he apologizes to Whitey for insulting him repeatedly.
• Juxtaposed Halves Shot: The posters/covers have Jim Carrey's face split in half, showing his character's "nice guy" and "asshole" personalities. The "Me" and "Myself" in the title refer to the dissociative identity disorder that Charlie Baileygates experiences.
• Karma Houdini: Charlie's first wife Layla and Chanté, the black chauffeur who seduces her away from Charlie. Apart from the cuckolding, they basically leave their three boys behind with no remorse and not so much as a child support cheque, as far as we know. Neither is seen again after they leave, and no explanation for their eventual fate is established, but it really feels like karma missed its mark.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: Hank decides to do something nice for Charlie. He fixes his nose, and while he's at it he makes his jaw more "manly." Charlie's sons find this hilarious. "Daddy's got a goddamn butt-hole on his chin!"
• Loophole Abuse: How the bet over the chicken egg is settled. Charlie's sons bet over whether or not they could get a chicken egg up the one cop's butt without breaking it. The son who made the bet just shoved the chicken head first into the cop's ass and the son who took the bet pays up but says that it's under protest.
• Match Cut: The film cuts from Hank about to take a dump on his neighbor's lawn to a chocolate soft-serve ice cream dispenser.
• Megaphone Gag: While Charlie is shopping in a supermarket, a woman with one item in hand asks to squeeze ahead of him in the cashier line because she's in a "wicked rush." As soon as Charlie cedes her some space, she signals to her waiting brood to wheel in two brimming shopping carts (while Charlie was in line to only purchase a newspaper)! This deception triggers Charlie to switch to his Hank persona, and Hank takes control of the cashier's microphone.
  Hank: Price check on VagiClean, please, price check on VagiClean. Someone's baking some bread, and it smells like sourdough.
• Mistaken for Racist: A lot of Charlie's misery starts because he asked Chanté if his limo service accepts checks and be made the mistake of using the term "you people."
• Multi-Character Title: "Me, Myself, and Irene". "Me" and "Myself" refers to Charlie and his split personality Hank, while "Irene" refers to, well, Irene.
• Nice Guy: Charlie. It bites him in the ass hard because everyone around him save for his sons treats him like something they stepped in.
• Not So Above It All: Chanté gets outraged over negative stereotypes regarding black men, yet he got a booty call pregnant and dumped his kids on someone else rather than accept the responsibility of parenthood, which is a massive stereotype against black men.
• Overly Long Gag: Killing that cow sure took a while. And it still didn't die.
• Parental Abandonment: When Layla runs off with her lover, she leaves the boys behind with Charlie. There's no evidence she keeps any contact with her sons. Even worse, seeing as how she leaves with their biological father. Luckily the boys don't seem too scarred by it (outside of calling women bitches, anyway).
• Parking Payback:
  • When Charlie asks one of the barbershop patrons to move his car, he tosses Charlie the keys and asks him to move it around back for him. When Hank makes his first appearance, he drives the car through the front of the barbershop, tosses him the keys and writes him a ticket for having his headlight out.
  • When Charlie sees a young football player drive a convertible up and park in the handicapped space (flaunting his unhandicapped status by leaping out over the door) it triggers Charlie's rage-fueled alter-ego Hank, who goes to town on the car with a trash bin. The football player then emerges from the store, helping the owner of the car who is a man in a neck brace. The owner is none to happy to see what Hank did to his car.
• Playful Hacker: Jamaal is shown in one scene casually hacking into the Pentagon's database while procrastinating on his homework.
• Pooping Where You Shouldn't: After a neighbor's dog repeatedly craps on his lawn, and the neighbor refuses to clean it up, Hank walks over and takes a crap on his neighbor's lawn.
• Prone to Sunburn: Casper/Whitey is an albino who left his family when they were going to move to Phoenix, Arizona.
  I wouldn't have lasted ten minutes out there.
• Rage Breaking Point: Charlie reaches his limit when a woman with two shopping carts of food tricks him into giving up his spot at the checkout counter.
• Raging Stiffie: Of the "morning wood" variety after Charlie and Irene have sex though it was actually Hank, so Charlie has no recollection of it.
  Charlie: (After urinating towards the upper-right corner of the bathroom wall) Irene! Why am I pissing like I had sex all night?
• Read the Freaking Manual: When Charlie's sons steal the helicopter, the son flying the plane is confident enough in his knowledge of flight mechanics to be able to fly the helicopter, but he has no idea of how to start since the helicopter's flight manual is in German, which he can speak but not read. Cue one of his brothers grabbing the manual and reading the instructions aloud while dropping f-bombs the entire time.
• Refuge in Audacity: Most of Hank's actions.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Irene is questioned by the FBI:
  Irene: "So, I smoked some pot. What, is that a crime?"
  Agent Boshane: *Beat* "...Uh-huh."
• Rule of Funny: Sucking breast milk isn't supposed to give you a milk mustache.
• Scenery Censor: When Hank exposes himself to a crowd, his genitalia is obscured by a woman's head blocking the way.
• Scenery Porn: Lots of gorgeous views of the Rhode Island Coast and Vermont Countryside.
• Shadow Archetype: Hank for Charlie. Both the narrator and Hank himself point out that Charlie suppressed all of his negative feelings, allowing them to fester and form into a second personality that does what Charlie's too polite to do. When Charlie finally has enough of Hank getting him in trouble, he finally blows his fuse and picks a fight with his alter ego, which is something Hank normally does. With Charlie finally giving into his primal side, Hank's identity began to fade away until there was nothing left but Charlie.
• Shout-Out:
  • The narrator is voiced by Rex Allen, Jr., the son of Rex Allen, who was the narrator of many Disney wildlife films—one of which was Charlie, the Lonesome Cougar. The narration was done in a way to mimic these films.
  • Charlie shows Irene a photograph of himself and his sons dressed up as the main characters of The Wizard of Oz. Charlie is disguised as Dorothy.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Pre-marriage Charlie and Layla, who even have t-shirts with each other's faces on them. In a Brick Joke, when Layla leaves Charlie she has a shirt with Chanté's picture.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: All three of Charlie's sons fit this trope to a T.
• Sophisticated as Hell: Charlie's "sons", who drop F-bombs even when discussing physics theories or reading instructions on how to pilot a helicopter (in German, no less).
• Split Personality: Charlie is nice, quiet, and polite; Hank is angry, loud, and rude.
• Split-Personality Merge: In the end, Charlie learns that he's stronger than Hank when Hank backs down from confronting the villain while Charlie doesn't, and this merges them back together.
• Split-Personality Takeover: Played with. At one point the two try to get rid of the other, but only though physical violence, which of course does nothing but make them both look like idiots.
• The Stinger: There's a post-credits scene of the whole family scouring the river to find Charlie's severed thumb. Whitey locates the thumb just in time to see a bass eating it.
• Surprise Multiple Birth: Charlie and his wife Layla are at the hospital, having just seen proof that Layla evidently had an affair with a black man, are even more surprised when Layla goes back into labor, as she's carrying triplets.
• Taking Advantage of Generosity: Charlie putting up with this for years is part of what makes Hank manifest.
• Tempting Fate: Hank sees a guy throw a cigarette on the ground, and challenges him to a fight. He starts doing some crazy shadowboxing moves, but the guy just tases him and gets his friends to help beat him.
• That Came Out Wrong: After a long motorbike ride, Irene complains of a numb backside. Charlie tells her he's okay:
  "Over the years, my ass has taken a pounding."
• The Dog Bites Back: This is the basic rationale behind why Hank assumes control of Charlie.
• Theme Music Power-Up: A section of Hardknox's 'Fire Like This' plays whenever Hank takes over.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: Will you marry me, bitch?
• Vandalism Backfire: See second point at Parking Payback.
• Visual Pun: The officer who gets a chicken (or, as some people call it, a cock) shoved up his ass.
• Vertigo Effect: When a boy wearing glasses drinking a milkshake stares at Charlie long enough that he becomes Hank.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It never revealed what became of the guy who laughed at Charlie by the soda vending machine. All that is shown is that Hank apparently ripped the vending machine open with a fire axe. The DVD has a deleted scene revealing that Charlie did exactly what what he told Irene he did; he told the guy that his comment wasn't helping and the guy apologized. Hank presumably went to find an axe after the guy drove off. This scene was restored in TV showings.
• World of Jerkass: Most of the townspeople (except for his three sons) are this to Charlie.
• Would Hurt a Child: Charlie is not an example, as the scream of a child sends him running the other way. Hank, on the other hand, is an example, as he attempts to drown the same girl in a fountain.
  Hank: (pulls the girl out of the water) Still wanna skip rope on the street?
  Girl: (coughs up water) I'm gonna tell my daddy on you, Charlie!
  Hank: Wrong answer. And the name's Hank, fuck-face. (pushes the girl under again)
  • Later on, Hank tries to pick a fight with a kid at a restaurant just for staring at him before the parents intervene. Irene calls Hank out on it afterward.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Barely averted when Charlie nicely asks the girl to skip rope on the sidewalk for the sake of her own safety, only for her to angrily shout "FUCK OFF!" at him, and then when he tries to call her out on her language, she screams loudly as if to blackmail him into splitting the scene before someone hears her and she falsely accuses him of harassing her.

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