Comedy, it’s a funny thing. It tickles you, or it doesn’t. Whether you still find Woody Allen funny, or think Adam Sandler’s the bomb, funny is about as subjective as choosing your favourite chocolate in the box. Hell, somebody must like Turkish delight…
Guillaume Gallienne writes, adapting his one-man stage show, directs and acts, as both the autobiographically named “Guillaume Gallienne” and his mother. Guillaume’s an effeminate boy, whose high camp nature leads his family to assume he’s gay. Now, a lot’s going to depend on your sense of humour here, but for me at least, employing clichéd characters to challenge gender stereotyping amounts to having your cake, eating it, and then complaining about the taste. The characters and politics are as one note as the conceit of a guy assumed to be gay coming out as straight, but the saving grace is Gallienne, who’s part Roberto Benigni, part Mr. Bean; delivering a performance of such joie de vivre, it’s hard not to like him.
Taken at face value, Gallienne delivers a frothy blend of light humour and undemanding melodrama, as a man, raised as though gay, comes out of the closet, admits he’s straight and… falls for a girl. If you can forgive the cop-out ending, clichéd characterisations, naive gender politics, and less than subtle “message”, Me, Myself & Mum is an entertaining, if meandering, comic conceit that succeeds more as a calling card for Gallienne than in challenging gender stereotypes. But then what do I know? I find Anchorman funny…
‘Me, Myself and Mum’ Movie Times
