There are a lot of problems with Me, Myself & Irene (2000), and that is without mentioning the controversy.  If you have seen the movie, you can probably guess why some might raise objections.  More specifically, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) protested the film’s portrayal of Dissociative Identity Disorder, or what the movie and much of the rest of the society grossly mischaracterizes as schizophrenia.  In a broader sense, it is not good to make light of anyone with such issues.  The Catholic Church teaches that people with these struggles should be treated with the same dignity God imbues everyone at the moment of their conception.  However, if the story had been told from a different perspective, there might have been something of value here.  Let me make these distinctions for you.

The distinctive place in which Me, Myself & Irene is set is Rhode Island, where Charlie Baileygates (Jim Carey) is a state trooper.  His life appears normal, but the narrator (Rex Allen Jr.) is there to tell us otherwise.  Nearly two decades previously, Charlie had married Layla (Traylor Howard).  They looked happy until they returned to their seaside cottage after the ceremony.  Their limousine driver, Shonté Jackson (Tony Cox), takes umbrage when Charlie asks if Shonté’s “people” take checks.  Charlie means to give a tip, but Shonté accuses Charlie of referring to the chauffer’s status as an African American little person.  Layla takes Shonté’s side, soon finding out that they are both members of Mensa, and nine months later she gives birth to triplets that look nothing like Charlie, if you take my meaning.  Not willing to cause an argument, Charlie accepts the children as his own, but Layla leaves a few years later with Shonté, never to return.  From then on, Charlie settled into being a soft-hearted dad, beloved by his genius kids, but being taken advantage by everyone else in town.  One day, however, something switches inside his brain.  After a mother goes in front of him at the grocery store, lying about the amount of stuff she has, Hank Evans (Jim Carey) emerges.  He is a long dormant, independent personality that had been lurking in Charlie’s subconscious.  Where Charlie is a pushover, Hank goes around getting immediate retribution from everyone who crosses him.  His day of carnage in town results in Charlie being called before his commanding officer, Colonel Partington (Robert Forster).  Having completed a number of tests and received medication, Colonel Partington suggests that Charlie soon take a vacation.  Charlie fears he is pushed off the police force, and privately that is what Colonel Partington wants.  For the time being, Charlie is sent with Irene P. Waters (Renée Zellweger) to upstate New York.  The reason for this trip involves her recent detention by the Rhode Island State Troopers on supposed hit-and-run charges.  It is clear to her that she is being set up by Dickie Thurman (Daniel Greene), her ex-boyfriend and ex-employer.  However, there is something going that goes beyond mere harassment.  What that is I am not clear on, and neither is the movie.  It has something to do with expanding a golf course and paying off the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Dickie has members of law enforcement on his payroll, like Lieutenant Gerke (Chris Cooper), who also have a vested interest in seeing Irene silenced for what she knows.  Once Charlie has brought Irene to her home town, she is questioned by two EPA officers led by Agent Boshane (Richard Jenkins), who is also crooked.  The agents botch an assassination attempt on Irene, who flees and finds Charlie, he being the only person she can trust at this time.  His first move is to call the police, but she does not trust anyone.  Instead, they decide to go on the lam until they can come up with a better plan.  Unfortunately, Charlie leaves his medicine in his hotel room.  From this point on, there is a series of mishaps as Charlie’s personality sways back and forth between him and Hank.  It need not be detailed as the two ramble through the countryside with (frustratingly) no destination in mind.  The only important development is when they meet the insultingly named Casper (Michael Bowman), who claims that his friends call him “Whitey.”  I will let you work out why he has these appellations, and since I choose not to take part in such “comedy,” I will call him Michael.  Anyway, Charlie and Irene befriend Michael, and he ends up traveling with them.  Yet, Michael tells Charlie that killed his family in cold blood when he was a child, leading to a wildly inappropriate night between Charlie and Irene.  Thankfully, none of it is displayed.  In the morning, the police have caught up with Charlie and Irene, and finally he has decided to return to Rhode Island.  He makes a call to one of his supposed friends among the troopers, who immediately conveys the planned rendezvous to Agent Boshane despite Charlie’s warnings not to do so.  The alert gets Dickie onto the train to try to kill Charlie and Irene, but they are able to get away.  In the process, an internal battle breaks out between Charlie and Hank for control of the body at this crucial moment.  While he seemingly fights himself, Irene gets separated, reboarding the train.  She thus gets to Providence before him and is eventually captured by Dickie.  Finally, Charlie reclaims complete control and is able to save Irene after she falls into a river from a bridge.  They are then picked up by Charlie’s sons, who had commandeered a helicopter in the chaos.  We close with a clean bill of health for Charlie, and the rest of the state troopers and his sons helping him propose to Irene.

The proposal is as good a way as any of ending Me, Myself & Irene.  As I allude to in the introduction, much of the so-called comedy involves Jim Carey’s brand of physical comedy as he switches back-and-forth between Charlie and Hank.  Again, this is not how schizophrenia works, nor should we be making light of somebody with such a disorder.  What is of value here is the unresolved trauma that triggers this problem for Charlie.  God bless him, he is a good man.  I felt for him personally, too, when he is confronted with the terrible things Hank does.  Charlie tells Irene that he is not a bad person, and this is true.  We might think these days that the insanity plea in court cases is an excuse because there have been examples of those who have abused this procedure.  That should not take away from the legitimate ones who honestly cannot control their actions.  At the same time, I would preach compassion for Hank.  As is clear, Charlie has been repeatedly wounded over the years, in large and small ways.  It is not enough to say that everything is fine and move on with your life.  These moments need to be prayed on and offered up to the only One who can carry such emotional burdens: God.  That is not just me, Catholic reviewer, wishing that the characters would behave in more Catholic ways.  Charlie actually goes to Confession at one point, and the priest that had married him and Layla is played by a real member of the Catholic clergy.  Unfortunately, Charlie’s time in the Confessional does not go well, and it only adds to his woundedness.  Even though his family loves him, regardless of their parentage, it is hard to feel like everyone is against you.  That is why Hank emerges.  He is there to protect Charlie.  What should be remembered is that God imbued us with the ability to stand up for ourselves, and we do not act like Hank in order to do so.

I am also not going to act like Me, Myself & Irene is a good movie.  It is pretty bad.  As demonstrated, the subject matter is controversial, and the middle of the movie rambles.  It would be better had this been a drama, but then I doubt you would have gotten Carey.  Then again, maybe that would not be a bad thing.